Part I of Finnish Agility Dog Survey: Training and Management of Competition-Level Agility Dogs

Knowledge regarding training, competition, and management routines of agility dogs is lacking. Through a retrospective online questionnaire, Finnish owners and handlers of 745 competition-level agility dogs provided information on training routines and management of these dogs during one year free of agility-related injuries. Competition routines were collected from the national competition results database. Most dogs trained agility 1-2 times a week, with a median active training time of 18 min a week. Dogs competed in a median of 2.1 runs per month at a speed of 4.3 m/s. Common field surfaces were different types of artificial turfs and dirt surface. Warm-up and cool-down were established routines, and 62% of dogs received regular musculoskeletal care. Moreover, 77% of dogs underwent conditioning exercises, but their frequency was often low. Additionally, dogs were walked for a median of 1.5 h daily. Pearson's chi-squared and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to evaluate the association between a dog's competition level and training and competition variables. A dog's competition level was associated with competition (p < 0.001) and training frequency (p < 0.001); dogs at higher levels compete more but train less than dogs at lower levels. This study provides information on training, competition, and management routines of competing agility dogs.

Genesurance counseling: Current training practices of genetic counseling graduate programs in the United States

In recent years, it has become apparent that patients expect genetic counselors to be able to address questions about insurance coverage for genetic testing and perform 'genesurance' tasks in and out of genetic counseling sessions. Anecdotally, many genetic counseling graduate programs have begun to incorporate genesurance training in some capacity. However, the amount, modality, and potential barriers to this training had not been previously studied; therefore, this study aimed to elucidate current graduate program practice regarding genesurance. Program Directors of Accreditation Council for Genetic Counseling (ACGC) accredited programs who had students enrolled as of July 2019 (n = 50) were recruited through the Association of Genetic Counseling Program Directors (AGCPD) listserv and invited to complete an anonymous electronic survey via Qualtrics. Program Directors (PDs) from 25 ACGC accredited programs located in the United States completed the survey and were included in the analysis, responses from two ACGC Canadian programs were excluded due to small sample size and differences in healthcare systems. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics and open-ended responses were coded utilizing latent qualitative content analysis. The majority of respondents from the United States, 96.0% (24/25), report incorporating genesurance training into their curriculum utilizing a variety of training modalities including classroom, clinical, and online experiences. Most (81.0%) felt their trainees were adequately or very prepared to discuss genesurance issues. Despite varied methods of teaching modalities, PDs identified barriers to providing this training, including time constraints within the curriculum, lack of interest in the subject, as well as acknowledging the constantly changing landscape of billing and insurance. Despite these barriers, a baseline understanding of the impact of insurance on offering genetic testing and insight into how insurance impacts clinical practice may be beneficial to genetic counseling trainees, as it reflects the current genetic counselor's workflow and practice patterns.

Building an evidence-base for the training of evidence-based treatments in community settings: Use of an expert-informed approach

In order to make EBTs available to a large number of children and families, developers and expert therapists have used their experience and expertise to train community-based therapists in EBTs. Understanding current training practices of treatment experts may be one method for establishing best practices for training community-based therapists prior to comprehensive empirical examinations of training practices. A qualitative study was conducted using surveys and phone interviews to identify the specific procedures used by treatment experts to train and implement an evidence-based treatment in community settings. Twenty-three doctoral-level, clinical psychologists were identified to participate because of their expertise in conducting and training Parent-Child Interaction Therapy. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were completed by phone, later transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic coding. The de-identified data were coded by two independent qualitative data researchers and then compared for consistency of interpretation. The themes that emerged following the final coding were used to construct a training protocol to be empirically tested. The goal of this paper is to not only understand the current state of training practices for training therapists in a particular EBT, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, but to illustrate the use of expert opinion as the best available evidence in preparation for empirical evaluation.