Psychotropic Drugs: Fast Facts, Fourth Edition

Great reference book in hospital administration especially with CMS ruling today with the Gov. use it every day for reference

Love it.

I own the third edition of this book, in spiral bound paperback. Love the helpful tips and easy to read format. This new edition, with new (no longer U.S, but Canadian) authors (hey, I'm Canadian)is disappointing on a number of levels. First, the book is advertised as hardbound. It isn't, it's a thin thin paperback. Second, it has only 240 pages, compared to 450 pages in the previous third edition. Third, many individual psychotropic drugs go almost barely mentioned, and certainly not covered in the detail in the previous edition. Fourth, the tiny print and rather cramped layout make for a less pleasant reading experience. Fifth, the appendices are a miserable disappointment: the P450 appendix in the third edition listed the various drug interactions/inducers/inhibitors, etc; in this new edition, all you get is a pathetic description of what the various letters/numbers in e.g 2D6 represent, and a kindergarten-quality definition of inducers/inhibitors, THAT'S IT!! A miserable disappointment. Don't waste your money. I am returning my copy for a refund. I'll keep my old third edition, it's vastly superior to this rush-job inferior product. Hey, the third edition may be a little out of date, but the info listed in this new edition isn't even that progressive (e.g omits priapism in the side-effects of Atomoxetine, offers little new information for many other drugs).

The first authors, who did a marvelous job with the earlier versions died. The title was bought out by another group, and the book was reassembled. It is no longer intuitive to use, the information is difficult to find, and this is dysfunctional as a quick reference handbook. I got the inside scoop from a psychopharmacologist, who knew the original contributors.