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Book Review
Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing 7th edition
Dr Stuart, G.W. and Dr Laraia, M.T
ISBN: 0-323012-54-X 2001 915 pages Mosby, Inc, St Louis
Kerrie Hancox
Lecturer, Centre for Psychiatric Nursing Research and Practice, School of Postgraduate Nursing, University of Melbourne, Carlton VIC
The seventh edition of this well-known text was released in 2001. This is a comprehensive text and most psychiatric nurses in Australia have been exposed to one of the editions of the Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing. This new edition incorporates a multi media approach to learning that assists nurses in accessing the most current information. The website is easily accessible and for people purchasing the book they have access to a restricted area that provides regular information updates (unfortunately I was unable to access and review the restricted area).
The lay out is clear, information is simple to locate and visual prompts are used to assist people reading the text to find what they are looking for. The text provides an excellent overview of psychiatric nursing. The structure of each chapter has been well thought out. At beginning there are learning objectives so the reader has an idea about what they will learn from the section. Throughout the chapter headings identify clearly various topics and special features. Finally at the end of each chapter review questions are provided, these assist the reader revisit central areas covered in the chapter.
There are a number of special features throughout the book marked with a symbol to represent the kind of information included. These special features assist readers to locate information and think critically about the content they are reading. It was great to see consumer quotes throughout the text, these help people to think about the impact they have on others lives. This really reflects the changes in our practice and the increasing involvement of consumers in our service delivery.
Another strong aspect to this text is the regular reference to citing evidence. References to evidence are throughout the book, this emphasises to the reader the importance of evidence based practice. For new psychiatric nurses it will assist in instilling the value of research and critical thinking.
Sections that are called 'Competent Caring' are especially useful for novice psychiatric nurses and students. In these sections real examples of excellent practice are described and discussed. These examples assist the text to come alive, making the practice area a reality and helping the reader to bridge theory and practice.
There are some difficulties however, using an American text in Australia means that the information provided is often unable to be generalised to an Australian setting. This could be confusing for the new psychiatric nurses we are hoping to socialise into an Australian nursing culture. Highlighting this point is the description of clinical supervision. Firstly very little is included in the text on this topic and in the first sentence a connection is drawn between clinical supervision and performance appraisal. Clinical supervision appears to have a much higher profile in Australia and the perception of what it is also appears to be quite different. There is an increasing push in Australia to separate clinical supervision from line management. There are also differences in some of the medications available and the trade names are not the same in all countries. Finally, the section on legal-ethical context of psychiatric nursing care also needs to be read keeping in mind that this in an American book.
In summary this is an excellent comprehensive text that will continue to influence the development of our future psychiatric nurses. The concerns previously mentioned arise because of the lack of an Australian text not the presence of an American one.
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