Full Description
As nurses gain greater responsibility and nurse practitioners become a larger group the pressure on nurses to prescribe accurately and independently increases. At the same time the general view among lecturers is that students of medicine as well as of nursing are arriving at university with increasingly poor basic maths skills, and this is also said to apply to pharmacy students. Students need a practical course textbook that will take them through into the start of their clinical work as a companion to drug prescribing, preparation and delivery.This is the second edition of this pocket-sized introductory guide to performing drug calculations accurately and confidently. Compiled by a pharmacist and a nurse, the book combines the essential theory of pharmacology with the implications for professional practice. It moves from explanations of the simple through to complex formulae relating to the many drugs used today, and includes worked examples plus problems for self-assessment. Unlike many of its competitors, it includes intravenous administration of drugs.New for the second edition:* moves away from hospital bias to include more community issues e.g patient controlled analgesia, and examples; 'how to use this book' completely rewritten* includes more examples of problems and presents the answers separately so they can be used for self-assessment* greatly improved presentation, including 2-colour text design
Contents
Preface How to use this book Drug Names 1. Pre-test 2. Basics 3. Units and equivalences 4. Dosage calculations 5. Percent and percentages 6. Moles and millimoles 7. Drug strengths or concentrations 8. Infusion rate calculations 9. Infusion devices 10. Interpretation of drug information 11. Paediatric dosage calculations 12. Revision test Appendices 1. Preparation of solutions (dilutions) 2. Preparation of powders 3. Body surface estimates 4. Weight conversion tables 5. Height conversion tables 6. Calculation of body mass index (BMI) 7. Estimation of renal function 8. Abbreviations used in prescriptions
