Product Details

From Barnes & Noble - Barnes & Noble, Inc.

A thirteen hundred page A to Z drug guide that has many adherents. As with other reference books, nursing drug guides should be compared. Very clearly, in medicine, one size doesn't fit all.

Robin Y. Wood

This is the fifth edition of a drug reference for nurses describing over 1500 prescription and nonprescription drugs classified into 51 categories. Drugs are alphabetically arranged by generic name with quick-reference A-Z tabs and a detailed cross-referenced index of names. The book includes more than 80 new drugs, many recently approved by the FDA. Two new anticonvulsants, two new antidepressants, and several new antiretroviral agents are described. The purpose is to provide a current, comprehensive, and convenient drug resource for nurses to assure safe and effective administration of medications. Drug information highlights the indications, action and pharmacokinetics, contraindications and precautions, side effects, interactions, route and dosage, time/action profile, and warnings for each drug. Nursing implications offered for each drug include assessment, laboratory test considerations, potential nursing diagnoses, implementation, patient/family teaching instructions, and guidelines for evaluation. This information is essential for safe, informed patient care by nurses, nurse practitioners, and nursing students in every healthcare setting. This type of reference is required wherever nurses give medications. Full color pictures clearly display 430 most commonly prescribed drugs. Special dosing considerations are given for pediatric, geriatric, and obstetric patients and patients with renal/liver or congestive heart failure. Issues of compatibility among drugs in syringes, IV tubing, and solutions are addressed. Appendixes contain useful tables for calculating infusion rates and dosages, commonly used combination drugs, administration techniques, routine immunizations, andrecent drug release updates. This drug reference is accurate, up-to-date, comprehensive, and convenient. It should be owned by all nurses and nursing students, available in all nursing libraries, and handy for quick reference in all healthcare settings where drugs are administered.

Reviewer: Nelly Lim, BA(Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing)
Description: This drug reference contains drug profiles of over-the-counter, prescription, and natural products, as well as nursing assessment, teaching, and drug-related guides with information pertaining to safe administration. This edition comes with a disk, a new feature since the previous edition published in 1999.
Purpose: The purpose is to "meet and fill the drug information needs of every student and practicing nurse, facilitating and emphasizing the nurse's role in detecting, preventing, and documenting adverse drug reactions and medication errors." These are ambitious but important objectives. Although the book is proactive in the detection and prevention of drug reactions and errors, documentation is not in depth.
Audience: This book is written primarily for practicing nurses and nursing students.
Features: One of the best features of this book is the section set apart solely for natural products. Other sections that deal with safe administration are especially useful and contain information that would normally be found in a textbook. These include special dosing considerations, lab values, BSA, dietary allowances, and color pictures of common drugs. The book's hard cover is a bonus considering the wear and tear that reference books endure on nursing units. Shortcomings of the book include the small font used in the drug profile tables and the lack of common unlabeled uses for some drugs.
Assessment: In addition to containing drug profiles, this book provides a wealth of useful and practical information specific to nursing care and safe medication administration. Especially unique are the profiles of natural products, which have become a mainstay in health and nutrition and require attention due to possible drug interactions. The disk also adds to the book's usefulness, although much drug information can be found online today.

Booknews

This time-tested guide covers 4600 trade and generic drugs as well as popular herbs and their interactions. Each entry includes information on indications and contraindications, action, pharmacokinetics, interactions, side effects, availability, dosage, and nursing implications, such as implementation, and patient/family teaching. Color photographs of the most commonly prescribed brand drugs can aid in quick recognition. Flex cloth binding. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Rating

3 Stars from Doody

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents