Philip Barker

The assessment of mental health problems is vital to the successful planning and treatment for people suffering from them. This book provides a step-by-step guide to conducting this assessment, giving student nurses a humanistic perspective on the subject. It has been updated to reflect new concepts and ideas.

Taken as a whole, the papers in this collection address many of the most pressing issues in psychiatric nursing today. Each chapter is followed by an invited commentary from respected psychiatric nurses.

This textbook teaches the nursing student about the psychiatric nurse settings, where the main aim is to reduce distress of the patient, and about mental health nursing which tries to help people resolve their problems and adapt to their setting thereby pre-empting further potential mental health problems.