Pharmacology and the Nursing Process 9th Edition

Book Preface

Now in its ninth edition, Pharmacology and the Nursing Process provides the most current and clinically relevant nursing pharmacology content in a visually appealing, understandable, and practical format. The accessible size, clear writing style, and fullcolor design of Pharmacology and the Nursing Process are ideal for today’s busy nursing student. The book not only presents drug information that nursing student needs to know but also provides information on what professional nurses may encounter during drug administration in a variety of health care settings, including accounts of real-life medication errors and tips for avoiding those errors. Edition after edition, the book has become increasingly inviting and engaging for the adult learner to read and study.

Features that help set the book apart include:
• A focus on the role of prioritization in nursing care
• A strong focus on drug classes to help students acquire a better knowledge of how various drug classes work in the body, allowing them to apply this knowledge to individual drugs
• Ease of readability to make this difficult content more understandable
• Integrated learning strategies content that helps students understand and learn the particularly demanding subject of pharmacology while also equipping them with tools that they can use in other courses and as lifelong learners who are building an evidence-based practice

For this edition, the author team has continued to focus closely on providing the most “need-to-know” information, enhancing readability, and emphasizing the nursing process and prioritization throughout.

Sharing the goal of creating a nursing pharmacology textbook that is not only academically rigorous but also practical and easy to use, the authors bring together a unique combination of experience.

The author team is comprised of an Associate Professor Emeritus with a PhD in nursing and more than 25 years of teaching experience, a clinical pharmacist with a PharmD and over 30 years of experience in hospital and long-term care pharmacy practice, and a nurse educator who holds a MSN in nursing education and has 30 years of teaching experience.

Organization

This book includes 58 chapters presented in 10 parts, organized by body system. The 9 “concepts” chapters in Part 1 lay a solid foundation for the subsequent drug units and address the following topics:

• The nursing process and drug therapy
• Pharmacologic principles
• Lifespan considerations related to pharmacology
• Cultural, legal, and ethical considerations
• Preventing and responding to medication errors
• Patient education and drug therapy
• Over-the-counter drugs and herbal and dietary supplements
• Gene therapy and pharmacogenomics
• A photo atlas that describes drug administration techniques, including more than 100 drawings and photographs

Parts 2 through 10 present pharmacology and nursing management in a time-tested body systems/drug function framework. This approach facilitates learning by grouping functionally related drugs and drug groups. It provides an effective means of integrating the content into medical-surgical/adult health nursing courses or for teaching pharmacology in a separate course.
The 49 drug chapters in these 9 parts constitute the main portion of the book. Drugs are presented in a consistent format with an emphasis on drug classes and key similarities and differences among the drugs in each class. Each chapter is subdivided into two discussions, beginning with (1) a brief overview of anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology and a complete discussion of pharmacology, followed by (2) a comprehensive yet succinct application of the nursing process.

Pharmacology is presented for each drug group in a consistent format:
• Mechanism of Action and Drug Effects
• Indications
• Contraindications
• Adverse Effects (often including Toxicity and Management of Overdose)
• Interactions
• Dosages

Drug class discussions conclude with Drug Profiles—brief narrative “capsules” of individual drugs in the class or group, including Pharmacokinetics tables for each drug. High-alert medications are identified with a symbol to increase awareness of high-alert medications.

The pharmacology section is followed by a Nursing Process discussion that relates to the entire drug group. This nursing content is covered in the following, familiar nursing process format:

• Assessment
• Human Need Statements
• Planning (including Goals and Outcome Criteria)
• Implementation
• Evaluation

At the end of each Nursing Process section is a Patient-Centered Care: Patient Teaching section that summarizes key points for nursing students and/or practicing nurses to include in the education of patients about their medications. This section focuses on teaching how the drugs work, possible interactions, adverse effects, and other information related to the safe and effective use of the drug(s). The role of the nurse as patient educator and advocate continues to grow in importance in professional practice, so there is emphasis on this key content in each chapter in this edition. This arrangement of content can be especially helpful to faculty who teach pharmacology through an integrated approach because it helps the student identify key content and concepts