Psychiatric Bulletin (2007) 31: 78. doi: 10.1192/pb.bp.105.004333
© 2007 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Clinical Handbook of Psychotropic Drugs for Children and Adolescents
Margaret Murphy
Department of Child Psychiatry, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental
Health Trust, Ida Darwin Hospital, Cambridge Road, Fulbourn, Cambridge CB1
5EE, email:
margaret.murphy{at}cambsmh.nhs.uk
K. Z. Bezchlibnyk-Butler & A. S. Virani (eds) Hogrefe & Huber,
2004, US$49.95, 312 pp. ISBN 0-88937-271-3
This handbook is intended as a practical reference book for clinicians.
Thus one measure of its success is how useful it is in a busy clinical setting
and whether there is any added benefit over the British National
Formulary or its international equivalents.
The book starts by providing a brief overview of psychiatric disorders in
childhood and adolescence. This section is the weakest because although it
provides the ‘basic facts’ there is not sufficient detail for
prescribing clinicians. I did, however, find myself using this section as a
basis for handouts for medical students.
The main body of this text is devoted to medications likely to be used in
child and adolescent psychiatric practice. Taking the section on
antidepressants as an example, it starts with a brief overview of the
different classes of available anti-depressants and general comments on the
use of antidepressants in children and young people. For individual classes of
drugs indications, pharmacology, dosing, pharmacokinetics, onset and duration
of action, adverse effects, withdrawal, precautions, toxicity, use in
pregnancy, nursing implications, patient instructions and drug interaction are
all covered. There are also helpful (and reproducible) patient information
leaflets. The information provided is concise and up to date, although in this
fast-developing field there is a danger that such texts can become out of date
relatively quickly.
I found myself regularly referring to the handbook in clinics. The
accessible writing style made it easy to share the information with young
people and their parents/carers. The only limitation is that the book’s
American authorship means that it tends to refer to licensing under the US
Food and Drug Administration and reflects American practice, which does differ
in some respects from contemporary practice in the UK.
