Psychopharmacology: Practice and Contexts is a practical and accessible text to assist nursing and allied health students in their understanding of psychotropic medications. It covers treatment monitoring through a range of care plans and interventions and provides strategies for minimising risk. The text is designed to allow readers to develop insight into the great variability in the ways in which individuals experience mental health disorders, and the equally variable fashion in which each person has the potential to experience both benefit and harm as a result of drug treatment.

Key features

• Oriented around the various groups of mental disorders, allowing students to assimilate information related to medication in the context of the mental health disorders that people experience.
• Each chapter begins with the information needed to build knowledge that can be applied later in thoughtful analysis of the numerous case vignettes throughout the book.
• Critical thinking exercises related to a particular disorder assist the student reader to consider a range of pharmacologic care contexts, challenges and practices.

PART 1: PRACTICE
1. Psychotropic Drug Use: History and Context
Psychological treatment
Biological treatment
A brief history of modern psychotropic drug treatment
Major changes in psychotropic prescribing: the last 20 years
Australian National Medicinal Drug Policy and Quality Use of Medicines
New Zealand Drug Policy
Medication-related problems
Multidisciplinary care and psychotropic pharmacotherapy
Recovery framework for mental health service provision

2. Law, Ethics and Accountability
The legal and strategic context for mental disorders
Involuntary treatment
Seclusion and restraint
Ethical principles
Ethical decision-making and ethical theories

3. Pharmacokinetics
Pharmacokinetics – the science of drug movements
Pharmacokinetics and nursing practice

4. Pharmacodynamics
Pharmacodynamics – the science of drug actions
Pharmacodynamics and nursing practice

5. Medication Administration and Calculations
Basic mathematical skills
Drug calculations
Medication administration
Patient/client and carer education

PART 2: CONTEXT
6. Mood Disorders
The spectrum of mood disturbance
Non-pharmacological treatment of mood disorders
Pharmacotherapy for mood disorders
General principles of treatment for bipolar disorder

7. Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety is part of life, not always an illness
Non-pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders
General principles of pharmacotherapy for anxiety disorders
Commonly encountered anxiety disorders and their treatment

8. Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses
Psychosis – a set of symptoms, not a disease
Schizophrenia
Antipsychotic medications
Adverse effects of antipsychotic drugs
Drug interactions with antipsychotics
Adherence and antipsychotic drug treatment

9. Substance Use Disorders
What are substance disorders and how do they relate to those with
mental illness?
Care considerations for people with substance use disorders

10. Mental Illness in Children and Adolescents
Special issues in child and adolescent psychiatry
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Autism spectrum disorders
Tic disorders
General psychiatry for children

11. Older People
The physical effects of ageing
Multiple diseases – multiple medicines
Cognitive disorders (including dementia)
Other comorbidities
Increasing susceptibility to side effects of medicines
Beers list (medication list)
Drugs and falls in the older person

12. Mental Illness in Special Populations
Eating disorders
Personality disorders
Sleep disorders
Drug-induced psychiatric syndromes
Pain and psychiatry
Complementary medicines
Drugs in pregnancy and lactation

PART 3: ADVANCE PRACTICE IN CONTEXT
13. Adherence and Concordance
The global burden of disability of chronic conditions
Adherence versus compliance
Concordance
The student nurse’s experience of medication management
Some considerations regarding medicines and adherence or non-adherence

14. Nurse Practitioner and Other Advanced Practice Roles
Advanced practice
Nurse practitioners
Nurse practitioner competency standards
Prescribing medications as an advanced nursing practice for NPs
Medicare Benefits Scheme and Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme for the nurse practitioner
A person-centred approach to NP prescribing in the context of mental illness

Karen-leigh Edward – Associate Professor of Nursing Research, Australian Catholic University

Chris Alderman – Associate Professor of Pharmacy, University of South Australia

Click the link below to access a sample chapter from Psychopharmacology

Chapter 1: Psychotropic Drug Use: History and Context