As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, you will likely encounter patients who suffer from various mental health disorders. Not surprisingly, ensuring that your patients have the appropriate psychopharmacologic treatments will be essential for their overall health and well-being. The psychopharmacologic treatments you might recommend for patients may have potential impacts on other mental health conditions and, therefore, require additional consideration for positive patient outcomes. For this Assignment, you will review and apply your understanding of psychopharmacologic treatments for patients with multiple mental health disorders.

To Prepare

Review the Learning Resources for this week.
Reflect on the psychopharmacologic treatments that you have covered up to this point that may be available to treat patients with mental health disorders.
Consider the potential effects these psychopharmacologic treatments may have on co-existing mental health conditions and/or their potential effects on your patient’s overall health.

To complete:

Address the following Short Answer prompts for your Assignment. Be sure to include references to the Learning Resources for this week.

In 3 or 4 sentences, explain the appropriate drug therapy for a patient who presents with MDD and a history of alcohol abuse. Which drugs are contraindicated, if any, and why? Be specific. What is the timeframe that the patient should see resolution of symptoms?
List 4 predictors of late onset generalized anxiety disorder.
List 4 potential neurobiology causes of psychotic major depression.
An episode of major depression is defined as a period of time lasting at least 2 weeks. List at least 5 symptoms required for the episode to occur. Be specific.
List 3 classes of drugs, with a corresponding example for each class, that precipitate insomnia. Be specific.

Solution:

Assignment 1: Short Answer Assessment

The appropriate drug therapy for a patient who presents with MDD and a history of alcohol abuse. Which drugs are contraindicated, if any, and why? Be specific. What is the timeframe that the patient should see resolution of symptoms?

Treatment for patients with Major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorder require proper assessment to utilize antidepressant medications for efficacy. With this consideration, a dosage of sertraline tablets can be prescribed for a patient to take for up to 5 weeks, once a day. That is 50gm each day, preferably in the morning. Also, the patient can take naltrexone, 50 gm once daily for 12 weeks or according to how they respond to it. It helps with the drug addiction so the patient can stop taking alcohol. Sertraline on the other hand works by increasing the production of serotonin chemicals in the brain. It is an antidepressant, mood- enhancing SSRI.“Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) affect levels of inflammatory markers in patients with MDD” (Wang et al. 2019).

The contraindicated medications for this drug therapy are Buspirone and Buprenorphine as they can cause serious condition. Buspirone is in the class of anxiolytics and it changes the amount of certain brain chemicals. It can cause serious side effects like confusion. When a patient takes sertraline together with Buprenorphine, it can cause a condition called serotonin syndrome that is characterized by abnormal heartrate, fluctuating blood pressure, seizure,….Please click the icon below to purchase full answer at only $10