Foundations of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: A Clinical Approach, 6e [Hardcover]

Elizabeth M. Varcarolis RN MA (Author), Margaret Jordan Halter PhD PMHCNS (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1416066675 | ISBN-13: 978-1416066675 | Publication Date: September 24, 2009 | Edition: 6

The 6^th edition of this market-leading textbook offers a clear, straightforward way to understand the often intimidating subject of psychiatric mental health nursing. Its practical, clinical perspective and user-friendly writing style help you quickly master key concepts. Clinical chapters follow the nursing process framework and progress from theory to application with a wealth of real-world examples to prepare you for practice.

• UNIQUE! A conversational, user-friendly writing style helps you quickly grasp complex psychiatric mental health nursing concepts.
• Clinical chapters are logically and consistently organized with sections on the clinical picture, epidemiology, comorbidity, etiology, and application of the nursing process.
• Clinical chapters follow the nursing process, providing you with consistent guidelines for comprehensive assessment and intervention.
• Vignettes prepare you for real-world practice with personal, descriptive characterizations of patients with specific psychiatric disorders.
• Coverage of psychopharmacology in clinical chapters familiarizes you with specific drug treatment options, including the most commonly used drugs and important nursing considerations for their use.
• Assessment Guidelines boxes list essential guidelines for comprehensive patient assessment.
• Case Studies with Nursing Care Plans present individualized histories of patients with specific psychiatric disorders and include interventions with rationales and evaluation statements for each patient goal.
• A separate chapter on cultural implications, as well as Considering Culture boxes throughout the text, provides essential information on culture, worldviews, and techniques for providing culturally competent care.
• Coverage of treatment and recovery in the community addresses the need for successful ongoing psychiatric mental health nursing care in the community setting.
• A chapter on end-of-life care examines the psychological impact of terminal illness and death on patients, families, and nurses.

• Updated nursing process and clinical chapters keep you current with the latest ANA Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice.
• An increased focus on health promotion and recovery reflects federal, state, and local initiatives to improve screening methods, patient and family teaching, rehabilitation, and community treatment options for people who have mental illnesses.
• Enhanced Evidence-Based Practice boxes emphasize the profound impact of research-and your potential role in that process-on the advancement of psychiatric treatment options.
• A new chapter on sleep disorders covers the most common sleep disturbances and their relationships to psychiatric illness, as well as the nurse's role in their assessment and management.
• A new chapter on sexual dysfunction and sexual disorders examines the complex issue of sexual behavior and provides the information you need to conduct a sexual assessment, identify sexual dysfunctions and disorders, recognize nursing implications, and formulate interventions.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 864 pages
• Publisher: Saunders; 6 edition (September 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416066675
• ISBN-13: 978-1416066675
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Medical Books > Nursing > Psychiatry & Mental Health

More About the Author

Elizabeth M. Varcarolis, RN, MA, Professor Emeritus, Formerly Deputy Chairperson, Department of Nursing, Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York, NY; Associate Fellow, Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), New York, NY.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The editing is laughable., May 2, 2011

By 

Jenne Brooks "Jen" (Waukesha, WI) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Foundations of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: A Clinical Approach, 6e (Hardcover)

This book provides standard information about mental health nursing care in an easy to read manner. However, the book and resource materials are poorly edited. Misspellings, blatant mistakes, and wrong answer keys are common. In one section of the online resources for the book, they refer to bupropion as generic Prozac, a mistake that if made in the field, would get the nurse's license taken.

For such a late edition of the book, it's unimaginable that this many mistakes exist!

What's worse, teachers taking questions from the test bank must be careful because the editing mistakes are frequent in there as well. It has been an endless frustration to my nursing class because my inexperienced professor is of the mindset that if it's in the test bank, it is right, even though many of the questions we received were clearly wrong or had more than one answer.

That being said, this book also has issues where information in one section of the chapter contradicts information appearing in another section. I believe this is due to the fact that multiple writers composed each chapter.

Hey editors:
- It's spelled "Rett Syndrome", not "Rhett's Disorder". And they do know what causes it. p639
- It's no longer considered appropriate to use a tongue blade on a seizing individual. Get this out of your book. p392
- The paragraph about Middle Eastern suicide bombers is racist and offensive, and doesn't really belong in a mental health nursing book. Keep your politics to yourself. p552
- "Cent-rally" is not supposed to be spelled with a hyphen. p328
- About half the questions on the resource CD are keyed wrong. Thanks again.
- and much much more.

Elizabeth Varcarolis/Elsevier could do well by hiring an editor or ten. I'd be embarrassed to have my name on such a sloppy book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-organized. Elsevier, EDIT YOUR TEXTBOOKS, November 3, 2010

By 

amelia "amelia" (midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Foundations of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: A Clinical Approach, 6e (Hardcover)

The book is well-organized for the most part, and easy to follow. The reading level is a little simple and conversational, so it's probably really intended for a basic intro to psych nursing -- the "advanced practice" sections could probably be left out, as anyone who is studying to be an advanced practice psych nurse would find this book too simplistic and without sufficient detail. The care plans at the end of each chapter are very good, as are the majority of tables and vignettes.

However...there are spelling mistakes, editing mistakes, and (as is almost always the case with Elsevier titles), problems with the practice questions and answers. I'm right now looking at chapter 17 (Cognitive Disorders) -- the chapter review question #5 (there are 5 per chapter) is an alternate-item "select all that apply" question, and the options are numbered 1-6; the answer key in the back of the book says the correct answers are "4,5,6,7." There is no "7." This sort of mistake, even in late editions, is exactly what I have come to be very frustrated with while using Elsevier/Mosby/Evolve materials. There are also several sentences with misspellings in words or letters missing or spaces in the middle of a word. This should not be the case in a 6th edition book. It's unprofessional and distracting.

I would like some rationales for the chapter review questions -- there's not much learning in not knowing why a certain answer is better than the others.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Contradictory., May 17, 2011

By 

RN Student - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Foundations of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: A Clinical Approach, 6e (Hardcover)

This book was a huge pain to have in my class. It is full of contradictions, and it is extremely poorly edited. If you are taking this class online, good luck. It you have a lecture for this class, listen well. The questions that come on the CD contradict the book and are extremely poorly edited. I really wish we had gone with a different book for this class.