Mental Health Medicines Management for Nurses

Book excerpt: Mental Health Medicines Management for Nurses provides nursing students with guidance on how to manage medicines safely and effectively when treating patients with mental health conditions. It outlines how psychiatric drugs work, what the common treatments are, the ethical, legal, and person-centred aspects of working with psychiatric medicines, and how medicines can and should be used in mental health care. Using innovative activities and real-life case studies, this book has been carefully designed to be the ideal resource to build knowledge and confidence in this important area of practice. Key features: Updated in-line with the latest NMC standards of proficiency for registered nurses. Includes clear explanations of both the underlying biology and pharmacology as well as the wider practicalities of working with medicines. Highlights the most common mental health conditions and associated treatments, including coverage of the possible side effects for all drugs described in the book. NEW: Increased emphasis on prescribing with new content on consultation, history taking, and decision-making when prescribing. NEW: Updated sections on ethics, consent, pharmacokinetics, antipsychotics, and adverse drug reactions.