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Director of Pharmacy, Jewish Home, San Francisco, CA; Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco.
Published Online, August 8, 2006. www.theannals.com, DOI 10.1345/aph.1H127
Audience: The book is geared toward students training in the field of psychiatry and current psychiatric clinicians.
Purpose: This text is an abridged handbook version of the American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychopharmacology, 3rd ed.,1 which is more detailed, especially in its treatment of basic science. Essentials of Clinical Psychopharmacology might be appropriate required reading for elective courses in pharmacy and medical degree programs.
Content: This text is divided into 2 sections. The first section presents information by class of drug, while the second section reviews specific disease states and includes chapters on particular issues and age groups.
Usability: The organization of this text is excellent. References are complete and generally current. At $77, this text is reasonably priced.
Highlights: The second edition of Essentials of Clinical Psychopharmacology meets a persistent need clinicians have for new reference materials to keep pace with the explosion of information in this field. This comprehensive, up-to-date handbook synthesizes a vast array of research and clinical experience into a well-organized teaching tool and handy reference.
Certain chapters in the second half of the text are outstanding; chapters on childhood and adolescent disorders, psychiatric emergencies, and pregnancy and lactation combine current research with clinical experience to develop practical approaches to these topics.
Limitations: Unfortunately, certain chapters become laundry lists of research summaries with no overarching interpretation of the data. Additionally, there is some redundancy between chapters. In particular, it seems odd that the editors chose to include 3 chapters related to psychiatric treatment of the elderly. Odder still, none of these chapters addresses the black box warnings issued last year related to the use of atypical antipsychotics in dementia. This is a hazard with all such texts—the material becomes dated even before reaching bookstore shelves.
Comparison with Previous Edition: The primary advantage of this text is that it is more current than the first edition. The editors did not necessarily improve this publication by breaking out individual drugs into separate chapters. On the one hand, this organization is useful to adequately review all material for each drug. On the other hand, this leads to some redundancy in issues that are generalizable across a class of drugs. This new edition also suffers from the loss of chapters on cholinesterase inhibitors, general treatment of agitation and aggression, and treatment of the medically ill patient included in the previous edition.
Comparison with Other Related Books: This text is more accessible than the expanded textbook from which it is drawn. Compared with other handbooks, such as the Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology,2 this book is less consistent in its format between chapters. However, since each chapter presumably is written by those with particular knowledge of their subject matter, the book offers the advantage of sharing expertise from a variety of authors.
Reviewer's Summary: The editors of Essentials of Clinical Psychopharmacology have created an updated, abridged reference that is comprehensive, yet accessible. Despite some issues of variability and internal redundancy, this text is an excellent review of the current state of psychopharmacology. I highly recommend this text for clinicians, libraries, and educators.
References
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