Author Description

This pocket-sized clinical companion is designed to assist in the assessment of psychiatric nursing clients, formulation of nursing diagnoses, and design of psychiatric nursing care plans. It provides quick and easy access to the detailed and concrete information students need to know as they visit the inpatient unit, community mental health setting, or home care setting. The content is clinically based, rather than theory based. This avoids repetition of material that students already have in their mental health nursing textbooks and makes it a perfect reference for clinical use. The latest diagnoses, assessment and treatment strategies, and psychotropic drug information relevant to nursing care of clients with psychiatric disorders. A focus on clinical information in order to assist the nurse in providing patient care in the inpatient unit, community mental health setting, or home care setting. Coverage of all major disorders commonly encountered in a clinical setting. Care plans with a nursing diagnosis etiology, assessment findings/diagnostic cues, outcome criteria, long-term goals, short-term goals, and interventions and rationales. A chapter on Major Psychotropic Interventions and Client and Family Teaching provides coverage of psychopharmacology in addition to the content found in each disorder chapter. The most recent information in the field, including the DSM-IV-TR taxonomy and 2005-2006 NANDA nursing diagnoses. Assessment tools collected in an appendix for quick reference. An appendix of drug monographs features the most commonly prescribed psychiatric medications. Revised and expanded client outcome sections include additional outcome criteria, short-term goals, and long-term goals for each diagnosis. Additional content on forensic issues in psychiatric nursing is integrated throughout as applicable. Online drug cards, updated quarterly, provide users with the latest drug information and can be printed and carried along with the manual.