Eimear Muir-Cochrane – BSc (Hons), RN, CMHN, GradDip-Adult Ed, MNS, PhD, FACMHN, MACN
Patricia Barkway – RN, CMHN, FACMHN, BA, MSc (PHC)
Debra Nizette – RN, Credentialed MHN, DipAppSc (Nursing Ed), BAppSc (Nursing), MNurStudies, FRCNA, FACMHN
Mosby Elsevier
Sydney 2015
ISBN 9780729582247
Type and Scope of Book
This is a quick reference guide written for healthcare workers that do not have formal mental health qualifications. It is written in a abbreviated form to give a introduction to the major types of clients and mental health themes. The book assumes the reader has had no previous mental health experience, so starts from the basic concepts.
Contents
Chapter 1 Mental Health every professional’s business
Chapter 2 Working in a recovery framework
Chapter 3 Essentials for mental health practice
Chapter 4 Mental Health Assessment
Chapter 5 Culture and mental health
Chapter 6 An overview of mental health
Chapter 7 Psychiatric and associated emergencies
Chapter 8 Managing medications
Chapter 9 Contemporary talking therapies
Chapter 10 Co-occurring medical problems
Chapter 11 Loss and grief
Chapter 12 Law and ethics
Chapter 13 Settings for mental health care
Appendix 1 Surviving clinical placement
Appendix 2 Who does what in clinical placement
Appendix 3 Working with people with challenging behaviours
Appendix 4 Prescription abbreviations
Appendix 5 Top tips for people taking psychiatric medications
Appendix 6 Mental health terminology
Strengths
A book has heaps of useful tips on how to handle difficult clients and patients. It makes for a excellent book for emergency nurses that are new to looking after patients with challenging and sometimes violent behaviours. These tips give many ways of surviving and being able to deal with this environment.
The pocketbook covers many of the major themes in mental health. The pocketbook has a logical order of placement of the chapters. This logical order allows the reader to be able to build on knowledge from previous chapters.
The language used is simple and easy for the new practitioner to the mental health environment. A lot of information is displayed in point form or tables. This is a useful way of getting information to the reader quickly so can be used in the clinical area.
The mental health assessment chapter is very useful. It gives the practitioner the structure and order that is the backbone for the making of a comprehensive mental health assessment. This is very useful and has many applications to emergency nursing practice.
The ‘to the bone’ content delivery means that the reader can read the book cover to cover easily to seek information and gain introductory knowledge. Perfect for the emergency nurse gaining quick knowledge.
Weaknesses
The pocketbook nature of the book gives a lack of detail about many complex issues that it attempts to cover in the content. The ‘to the bone’ content could be covered in a app in the modern world of information access.
Practitioners that have worked in mental health know that there are many different complex influences and applications to get good outcomes. The pocketbook nature of the information given means that this is difficult to portray this complexity.
Recommended Readership
Patients with mental health problems make up a large percentage of Emergency Department attendances. Emergency nurses would benefit from the information in the assessment chapter. This will assist in your ability to care for patients with mental health issues and in crisis.
The book does have gearing to a student that was undertaking a clinical placement in mental health. It has a appendix specifically written to address these needs. The book is suited in the Emergency Department clinical area due to its ability to be quick referenced.
This book is also very useful for emergency nursing practitioners, to assist in comprehension of other qualified mental health practitioner’s medical notes. This also helps understand that outcome of decisions made by these mental health specialist teams.
Overall Rating
The pocketbook is a great source of introductory knowledge of mental health practice. Any reader new to mental health will benefit from the books content. Emergency nurses will gain vital knowledge and insights into mental health by reading this book.