This book presents information about brain function and its chemical underpinnings in a way that contributes to a conceptual understanding of distress and subjective well-being. Chapter 1 of the book provides a history of thought in psychiatry and explains how we arrived at our current system for categorizing distress. The second chapter offers information on physiology, including brain circuits undergirding anxiety and depression, circuits for emotional or impulse regulation, and circuits for robust motivated behaviors. Information on pharmacology, including the major classes of drugs used to influence behaviour, and the issues over the regulation of pharmaceuticals are presented in the third chapter. This is followed by five chapters that consider categories of distress that afflict adults, namely, depression, anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders and addictions. Chapter 9 focuses on categories of distress in children such as pediatric bipolar disorder and depression. The last chapter of the book considers whether current diagnostic practices have served us well, looks at an alternative focus for delivering mental health services, and deals with those behaviors that promote flourishing and well-being.

Workplace mental illness, the absence of basic human caring, and stress are all growing realities in our culture and our time. Nurses are subjected to assault, harassment, addictions, violence, and bullying, which unnecessarily add stressors to the day’s regular workload of managing complex patient care. In several of these situations, a lack of work-life balance contributes to these unwarranted attacks. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the contributing factors to workplace stress and how to revisit our work life and our own mental health. The book is divided into four parts. The first part establishes the importance of creating a healthy work environment. The second part describes the roles and responsibilities of health care institutions, workplace managers, and individual employees in creating, fostering, and continuing healthy workplace attitudes and respectful behaviors. The third part of the book investigates the variety of situations within a workplace environment that can erode mental health among coworkers, including the effects on coworkers of bullying, violence, addictions, and unethical behavior. The fourth part explores various approaches at the personal, professional, and organizational levels that can influence change from an unhealthy to a healthy workplace environment.

The ability to reduce the burden of illness among older adults is necessary as individuals are living longer and experiencing lower rates of disability. Advanced practice nurses are skilled to relieve the burden of illness among older adults through specialized training and providing treatment in a variety of clinical settings. While geriatric-focused content exists, advanced practice nurses can benefit from clinical pearls specific for the advanced practice nurse providing holistic mental health care. This handbook offers advanced practice nurses, nurse educators, and graduate nursing students a reference that is intended to be supplemental to uniquely providing care for older adults which includes an overview of the aging process as well as assessing and developing treatment plans for older adults with mental health disorders. As older adults often work collaboratively with family, friends, caregivers, and health care providers, approaches to such relationships are explored and intended to serve as a resource for providing mental health care that can contribute to the overall success of treatment. The text provides an interprofessional box that encourages and assists the advanced practice nurse navigating through interdisciplinary collaborative practice. Such interprofessional partnerships can enhance care—particularly in cases of complexity. Advanced practice nurses can utilize the provided case studies to identify and modify service delivery that promotes evidence based practice.

Social workers are the number one providers of mental health services in the United States. This book describes the realities of the contemporary American mental health system and the impacts on clients and social workers. It takes a critical perspective on the lack of quality care for those among society’s most vulnerable individuals, the mentally ill. Unlike other texts that address mental health and illness, the book focuses on the issues and policies that create challenges for social workers in the mental health system and obstacles to a continuum of excellent mental healthcare. The book also focuses on ways that social workers can help improve the overall functioning of the mental health system. One theme of the book is that mental health diagnosis, treatment, and access to care are lacking due to an insufficient knowledge base. That is, some mental disorders are not yet well understood, and therefore, responses can be inappropriate or inadequate. The critical perspective ensures that an examination of mental health treatments, especially pharmacologic therapy, does not focus exclusively upon the benefits to clients taking prescribed medications. The book digs deeper to ask who benefits when clients take psychotropic drugs. With a focus on social work innovation in mental healthcare, the book provides descriptions of promising policies and practices to improve mental healthcare in the United States. This includes new drug and brain stimulation or neuromodulation techniques and expanded social work prevention efforts. The book is recommended as a primary text for mental health courses in MSW programs. It can also be used in upper level undergraduate college courses in social work, typically BSW programs. The book finally ensures that social work students will not only understand the issues of their clients (micro level) but understand mental health issues in a broader societal context (macro level).

Mental health and mental illness permeate all sectors of society and all people. Although beliefs about mental health vary across cultures, generations, and ages, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has emerged as a growing concern in recent years. Although many interventions exist for health care professionals to use for their patients with PTSD, it is critical to remember that all individuals respond differently, not only to the trauma and stress experienced, but also to the treatment regimens and support that are available to them. Hence, an individualized approach to assessment, diagnosis, and treatment is always a must. This book will help the health care clinician better understand the effects of trauma, what the assessment of PTSD should entail, and what interventions are most effective. Recognizing, understanding, and having an increased awareness of PTSD, as well as who it impacts and how it does so, are important if health care clinicians are to work together to implement appropriate interventions and obtain the best possible outcomes for all involved. The book is a great starting point for those working with individuals who are suffering from PTSD. The book is divided into three parts. The first part discusses stress, mental health, mental illness, and trauma. The second part of the book focuses on PTSD, predisposing factors and risk factors for developing PTSD, the impact of traumatic events, and the long-term impact of PTSD. The final part describes prevention of PTSD, clinical and treatment interventions of PTSD, and coping with PTSD. It also explores community involvement, cultural implications, and special population considerations in PTSD management, and describes future trends and directions for treating PTSD.

Depression, often referred to as the “common cold of psychopathology”, is among the most prevalent psychiatric conditions, yet it remains challenging to understand and treat. Experience such as the difficulty of continuing on with one’s typical routine, desires, and goals that differentiate more normal experiences of sadness and malaise from syndromes of depression drive people to seek treatment for these conditions. This book provides an overview of all aspects of unipolar and bipolar depressive disorders, including their presentation, course, impact on functioning, etiology, and treatment. It integrates recent research on risk factors for these conditions and biological underpinnings of depression and mania alongside well-established observations regarding the phenomenology and correlates of these conditions. The book explicitly integrates models of depression such as the diathesis-stress model and vulnerability model, across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The book shows how such major psychology disciplines as clinical, developmental, evolutionary, personality, and behavioral neuroscience shed light on the causes, risk factors, and treatment options for the full spectrum of depressive disorders. It describes what is known about the kinds of stress that seem to be most relevant to depressive disorders; how this stress may exert its effects; and other factors that may help to explain individual differences in the stress-depression relationship. Cultural and gender as variables are examined as is depression across the lifespan. In addition, the book clarifies common misconceptions about depression and mood disorders, and considers how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) affects diagnostic practice.

This book serves as the pillar for clinical care teams to improve health equity among homeless older adults. Interdisciplinary care teams are essential in complex homeless older population clinical practice, as all disciplines must work together to address medical, surgical, behavioral, nutritional, and social determinants of health. All clinicians who treat older adults, from the independent to the frail, should approach problem solving via an inclusive approach that includes social work, pharmacy, nursing, rehabilitation, administrative, and medicine inputs. The social determinants of health that contribute to the complexities of clinical care outcomes cannot be addressed within silos. The book reflects a holistic care model to assist clinicians in the complicated homeless population that is continuing to change in the instability of the homeless environment. The book is divided into 14 chapters. The chapters in are organized by problems most commonly faced by clinicians in servicing homeless populations: mental, social, medical, and surgical challenges. Chapter one presents definition and background of geriatric homelessness. Chapter two discusses chronic mental health issues (psychosis) in the geriatric homeless. Chapters three and four describe neurocognitive disorders, depression, and grief in the geriatric homeless population. The next two chapters explore ethical, legal, housing and social issues in the geriatric homeless. Chapters seven and eight discuss infectious diseases in homeless geriatrics population. Chapter nine is on cardiovascular disease in homeless older adults. Chapter 10 describes care of geriatric diabetic homeless patients. Chapter 11 discusses geriatric nutrition and homelessness. Chapter 12 presents barriers and applications of medication therapy management in the homeless population. Chapter 13 describes dermatologic conditions in the homeless population. Finally, the book addresses end-of-life considerations in homelessness and aging.

This book examines new research regarding battered women and cross-cultural and cross-national issues, and addressed issues ranging from murder--suicide in domestic violence cases to proposed legislation and congressional resolutions. It reflects new research on traumatic responses, and addresses trauma-informed and trauma-specific psychotherapy, interventions with youth in juvenile detention centers, information from government task forces regarding children exposed to violence and juvenile justice, and new findings regarding the application of psychology to the legal system. Some of the battered women who already have been identified with a mental disorder that is exacerbated by the abuse or those who develop battered woman syndrome and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the abuse itself may need some psychotherapy to help them heal and move on with their lives. The link between sex trafficking and domestic violence has also become much better known within the last 10 years. The concept of learned helplessness has been quite useful in expert witness testimony to help jurors understand how difficult it is for women to leave the relationship and why some women become so desperate that they must arm themselves against batterers. To eradicate domestic violence and violence in the community, people must stop modeling both sexist and violent behavior and change the divorce laws to empower children and abused women so they are no longer victimized by the abusers.

School nursing is noble work and a recognized specialty within the profession of nursing. The author’s goals in this book are to share her passion for school nursing and to help her colleagues recognize school nursing careers as unique opportunities for helping students and the larger community. The book is an essential guide to meet the exciting professional challenges of school nursing. It will help school nurses recognize a wide range of health issues and the ever-expanding role that they have in prevention and treatment. The book is a quick-reference guide for both the novice and the experienced school nurse who wishes to keep abreast of new information. It may also serve as a supplemental textbook for nurses who are enrolled in college or university programs of study for state certification or who are preparing to take the examination for national certification through the National Board for the Certification of School Nurses. It includes relevant information about the five components included in the exam and in the courses that must be taken: health problems and nursing management, health appraisal, health promotion and disease prevention, professional issues, and special health issues. A chapter titled “Up Your Game,” which is new to this third edition, includes descriptions of 12 attributes essential for school nurse practice. Also included is a separate section dealing with the marginalized child, which covers issues including gender identity, mental illness, and chronic health conditions. The new edition also covers gun violence, the history of drug use in the United States, medical use of marijuana, vaping, and Narcan use.

Patients with psychiatric diagnoses comprise some of our most vulnerable global populations. The specialty of psychiatric nursing follows the general nursing code of ethics and also has its own specialty-oriented strategies, interventions, and scope of practice. This book is divided into five sections. The first section provides the nurse with general information related to psychiatric diagnosis, prevalence statistics, and theories of etiology. It reviews the basic environmental safety guidelines and discusses ethics in caring for the mentally ill. Finally, it presents the importance of the therapeutic alliance in providing trauma-informed care in a safe environment. The second section provides brief examination of seven specific disorder categories that nurses may need to understand in providing safe care to patients admitted for any reason, including a psychiatric disorder. These categories include pediatrics and neurodevelopmental disorders, thought disorders, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder and related disorders, trauma and stress, and neurocognitive and neurodegenerative disorders. The third section examines three specific groups of medical diagnoses in which the signs and symptoms of the medical diagnosis share symptoms with a psychiatric diagnosis. Misidentification of these symptoms as purely psychiatric can lead to incorrect treatment of the patient’s condition. Section four investigates substance use disorders and dual diagnosis. The final section focuses on what the nurse may encounter in different subspecialties with patients who have a psychiatric disorder, but who have been admitted and are being treated for a separate medical issue. It closes with suggestions for practice for all nurses who may be dealing with patients with mental illness. The book is designed for the non-psychiatric nurse, advanced practice nurse, and those with a psychiatric specialization. It can serve as an evidenced-based, user-friendly resource that will help all nurses provide excellent care to patients with and without a mental illness.