Prescribing Mental Health Medication: The Practitioner's Guide

Prescribing Mental Health Medication is a text for nursing and medical practitioners who are learning how to diagnose and treat mental disorders with medication. Skills-based, it focuses on the following key issues:

• how to start and stop medication
• how to dose
• when to change medication
• dealing with particular kinds of patients
• specific illnesses and their medication
• special populations and conditions
• the management of side effects
• practical issues such as monitoring medication with blood levels
• administrative issues such as record-keeping.

Special icons used throughout the text highlight clinical tips, advice on how to talk to patients and differences in practice in primary care settings.

Based on the author's considerable experience of training nursing and medical staff, Prescribing Mental Health Medication presents complex topics in an organized, logical and easily assimilated format. It provides a supportive text for those new to prescribing and a comprehensive source of reference for more experienced practitioners or teachers.

Dr. Doran brings twenty-five years experience as a mental health clinician and prescriber to this text. His professional career has included outpatient, inpatient and university settings as a practitioner, supervisor and teacher. He teaches psychopharmacology to medical and nursing students, interns, residents and practitioners in the community. Sought as a speaker at conferences and symposia, Dr. Doran has lectured throughout America and the UK on topics of psychopharmacology and mental health.