Tag: Psychopharmacology

Book: Psychopharmacology: A mental health professional’s guide to commonly used medications (Nursing)

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Book Title:

Psychopharmacology: A mental health professional’s guide to commonly used medications (Nursing).

Author(s): Herbert Mwebe.

Year: 2018.

Edition: First (1st).

Publisher: Critical Publishing Ltd.

Type(s): Paperback and Kindle.

Synopsis:

This jargon-free guide is suitable for all trainee and registered health professionals who require knowledge and understanding of drugs used in the treatment of mental health conditions for prescribing or administering purposes. A life-saving pocketbook that you can easily carry anywhere you go!

Introductory material provides a background on psychotropic drugs, the aetiology of mental illness, some of the commonly used drugs in practice and brief notes on common non-pharmacological interventional options. It also examines biochemical and neurodevelopmental theories and the link to the pathophysiology of mental illness as well as clinical decision making.

The central chapters of the book provide comprehensive coverage of all the major medications used in mental health. Each focuses on a specific class of drug, detailing the most commonly used medicines, including side effects, average doses, contra-indications and clinical management interventions that may be required. At the end of each chapter a series of review questions enable readers to review their learning, and theory is clearly related to practice throughout.

Considering Drug-Associated Contexts in Substance Use Disorders and Treatment Development.

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Research Paper Title

Considering Drug-Associated Contexts in Substance Use Disorders and Treatment Development.

Background

Environmental contexts that are reliably associated with the use of pharmacologically active substances are hypothesized to contribute to substance use disorders.

In this review, the researchers provide an updated summary of parallel pre-clinical and human studies that support this hypothesis.

Methods

Research conducted in rats shows that environmental contexts that are reliably paired with drug use can renew extinguished drug-seeking behaviour and amplify responding elicited by discrete, drug-predictive cues.

Akin to drug-associated contexts, interoceptive drug stimuli produced by the psychopharmacological effects of drugs can also influence learning and memory processes that play a role in substance use disorders.

Results

Findings from human laboratory studies show that drug-associated contexts, including social stimuli, can have profound effects on cue reactivity, drug use, and drug-related cognitive expectancies.

This translationally relevant research supports the idea that treatments for substance use disorders could be improved by considering drug-associated contexts as a factor in treatment interventions.

The researchers conclude this review with ideas for how to integrate drug-associated contexts into treatment-oriented research based on 4 approaches:

  • Pharmacology;
  • Brain stimulation;
  • Mindfulness-based relapse prevention; and
  • Cognitive behavioural group therapy.

Throughout, the researchers focus on alcohol- and tobacco-related research, which are two of the most prevalent and commonly misused drugs worldwide for which there are known treatments.

Reference

LeCocq, M.R., Randall, P.A., Besheer, J. & Chaudhri, N. (2020) Considering Drug-Associated Contexts in Substance Use Disorders and Treatment Development. Neurotherapeutics. 17(1), pp.43-54. doi: 10.1007/s13311-019-00824-2.

Review of Physical Health Monitoring after Rapid Tranquilisation for Acute Behavioural Disturbance

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Research Paper Title

Physical health monitoring after rapid tranquillisation: clinical practice in UK mental health services.

Background

The researchers aimed to assess the quality of physical health monitoring following rapid tranquillisation (RT) for acute behavioural disturbance in UK mental health services.

Methods

The Prescribing Observatory for Mental Health (POMH-UK) initiated an audit-based quality improvement programme addressing the pharmacological treatment of acute behavioural disturbance in mental health services in the UK.

Results

Data relating to a total of 2454 episodes of RT were submitted by 66 mental health services.

Post-RT physical health monitoring did not reach the minimum recommended level in 1933 (79%) episodes.

Patients were more likely to be monitored (OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.39-2.29, p < 0.001) if there was actual or threatened self-harm, and less likely to be monitored if the episode occurred in the evening (OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.62-1.0, p < 0.001) or overnight (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.44-0.75, p < 0.001).

Risk factors such as recent substance use, RT resulting in the patient falling asleep, or receiving high-dose antipsychotic medication on the day of the episode, did not predict whether or not the minimum recommended level of post-RT monitoring was documented.

Conclusions

The minimum recommended level of physical health monitoring was reported for only one in five RT episodes.

The findings also suggest a lack of targeting of at-risk patients for post-RT monitoring.

Possible explanations are that clinicians consider such monitoring too demanding to implement in routine clinical practice or not appropriate in every clinical situation.

For example, physical health measures requiring direct contact with a patient may be difficult to undertake, or counter-productive, if RT has failed.

These findings prompt speculation that post-RT monitoring practice would be improved by the implementation of guidance that integrated and refined the currently separate systems for undertaking and recording physical health observations post-RT, determining nursing observation schedules and detecting acute deterioration in physical health.

The effectiveness and clinical utility of such an approach would be worth testing.

Reference

Paton, C., Adams, C.E., Dye, S., Delgado, O., Okocha, C. & Barnes, T.R.E. (2019) Physical health monitoring after rapid tranquillisation: clinical practice in UK mental health services. Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology. doi: 10.1177/2045125319895839. eCollection 2019.