A pocket-sized clinical companion, Manual of Psychiatric Nursing Care Planning, 4th Edition helps you assess psychiatric nursing clients, formulate nursing diagnoses, and design psychiatric nursing care plans. It offers quick and easy access to information on care in a range of settings including the inpatient unit, home care, or community mental health setting. Expert author Elizabeth M. Varcarolis, RN, MA, provides a clinically based focus with the latest guidelines to psychiatric nursing care. Designed to accompany Foundations of Mental Health Nursing, this book is a perfect reference for creating care plans and for clinical use.

-Current coverage includes the latest diagnoses, assessment and treatment strategies, and psychotropic drug information relevant to nursing care of patients with psychiatric disorders.

-Clinically based information helps you provide patient care in a range of environments including the inpatient unit, community mental health setting, or home care setting.

-Coverage of all major disorders includes those commonly encountered in a clinical setting.

-A consistent format for each care plan includes a nursing diagnosis, etiology, assessment findings/diagnostic cues, outcome criteria, long-term goals, short-term goals, and interventions and rationales.

-Assessment tools such as tables, charts, and questionnaires are provided in an appendix for quick reference.

-A Major Psychotropic Interventions and Client and Family Teaching chapter describes the uses and workings of psychotropic agents.

-The latest diagnostic information includes the DSM-IV-TR taxonomy with diagnostic criteria for mental disorders, to enable accurate assessment and diagnosis of patients.

-Current psychiatric nursing guidelines are based on ANA's 2007 Psychiatric Mental-Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice.

-Updated 2009-2011 NANDA-I nursing diagnoses assist with accurate diagnoses by including the latest nursing diagnoses related to psychiatric nursing.

-Updated drug information includes the latest on medications used with psychiatric patients, for optimal drug therapy.