Thoroughly updated and revised, the Handbook of Nonprescription Drugs: An Interactive Approach to Self-Care provides accessible information on nonprescription drug pharmacotherapy, nutritional supplements, medical foods, nondrug and preventive measures, and complementary and alternative therapies. The 17th edition helps students and practitioners develop problem-solving skills needed to assess and triage a pharmacy patient s medical complaints. It provides Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dosing information and evidence-based research on the efficacy and safety of over-the-counter (OTC) and herbal medications.

52 peer-reviewed chapters provide updated content on OTC medications and complementary therapies, prescription-to-OTC conversions, FDA revised or final rules, FDA safety and label warnings, therapeutic issues and controversies, treatment or prevention guidelines, OTC drug withdrawals from the market, and updated product tables and references.
Disease-oriented chapters contain new and revised case studies, treatment algorithms, comparisons of self-treatments, patient education boxes, product selection guidelines, and dosage and administration guidelines.
A new chapter, Self-Care Components of Selected Chronic Diseases covers asthma, diabetes mellitus, hypertension and heart failure, dyslipidemia, and osteopenia and osteoporosis.
Key Points section at the end of chapters highlights important concepts.
Available online through subscription to PharmacyLibrary with robust classroom resources, including monthly chapter updates, chapter presentations through template PowerPoint slides, links to credible websites, and supplemental QuEST/SCHOLAR case studies.

best-selling book is fully updated to address the ever increasing demands on healthcare professionals to deliver high-quality patient care. A multitude of factors impinge on healthcare delivery today, including an ageing population, more sophisticated medicines, high patient expectation and changing health service infrastructure. Time demands on primary care doctors have caused other models of service delivery to be adopted across the world, leading to ongoing changes in the traditional boundaries of care between doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. Certain medical tasks are now being performed by nurses and pharmacists, for example prescribing. Healthcare policies to encourage patients to manage their own health have led to more medicines becoming available over the counter, allowing community pharmacists to manage and treat a wide range of conditions. Further deregulation of medicines to treat acute illness from different therapeutic areas seems likely. Government policy now encourages chronic disease management as a self-care activity, and could well be the largest area for future growth of reclassification of medicines. Pharmacists, now more than ever before, need to be able to recognise the signs and symptoms, and use an evidence-based approach to treatment.

Community Pharmacy is intended for all non-medical prescribers but especially for pharmacists, from undergraduate students to experienced practitioners.

Key features

• Guidance for arriving at a differential diagnosis
• Practical prescribing tips
• Trigger points for referral boxes
• Other hints and tips boxes
• Specific questions to ask boxes
• Case studies
• Self-assessment questions

Consistent approach gives:

• Anatomy overview
• History taking and physical examination
• Prevalence and epidemiology
• Aetiology
• Arriving at a differential diagnosis
• Clinical features
• Conditions to eliminate

Likely causes

Unlikely causes

Very unlikely causes

• Evidence base for OTC medicine
• Practical prescribing and product selection

• More on the examination of eyes, ears and mouth
• New sections on future-proofing (vaccinations etc.)
• New material covering inter-professional education for clinical skills.
• Now on StudentConsult