Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology

Announcing the only resource to focus on the prescription of psychiatric drugs to paediatric patients! This landmark new book offers how-to guidance on performing baseline assessments, monitoring outcomes and adverse events, developing psychoeducational strategies, choosing "first-line" treatments, and more. In addition, it shows how to apply these principles to the psychopharmacologic management of a large number of child and adolescent psychotic disorders, anxiety disorders, and behaviour disturbances. Incorporates up-to-date information on efficacy, side effects, and drug metabolism. Discusses the basic types of baseline assessments--diagnostic, medical, symptomatic, functional, and more--that are necessary to initiate psychopharmacologic treatment. Covers fundamental principles of treatment such as models of care, selection of pharmaceutical agents, therapeutic drug monitoring, education strategies, and dealing with refractory cases. Describes, step by step, how to initiate, monitor, evaluate, improve, or change treatment according to the type of diagnosis or patient problem. Includes an appendix that explains how to set up a psychopharmacologic treatment clinic and lists a variety of assessment instruments that are useful in everyday practice.