Handbook of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology

Abstract

Reviews the book, Handbook of child and adolescent psychopharmacology edited by Benedetto Vitiello, Gabriele Masi, and Donatella Marazziti (2006). This book provides practical, updated, evidence-based information on the best use of psychotropics to clinicians caring for youngsters with psychiatric illness. Acknowledging the controversial nature of medication prescribed to manage childhood emotional and behavioral disturbances, it describes features of various disorders but inconsistently considers psychosocial interventions that may be appropriate for particular disorders or symptom complexes. Overall, this book is a well-referenced, useful overview that gives readers a handy structure for understanding the basis and process for prescribing medications to psychiatrically ill youth. This book will prove especially helpful to psychiatric residents and trainees in the core mental health professions. Clinicians more than 3 years posttraining may also find it of benefit as a primer for contemporary evidence-based practice, which can be expected to become more prevalent as the clinical literature increases usage of related vocabulary and concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)