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The Social Determinants of Mental Health aims to fill the gap that exists in the psychiatric, scholarly, and policy-related literature on the social determinants of mental health: those factors stemming from where we learn, play, live, work, and age that impact our overall mental health and well-being. The editors and an impressive roster of chapter authors from diverse scholarly backgrounds provide detailed information on topics such as discrimination and social exclusion; adverse early life experiences; poor education; unemployment, underemployment, and job insecurity; income inequality, poverty, and neighborhood deprivation; food insecurity; poor housing quality and housing instability; adverse features of the built environment; and poor access to mental health care. This thought-provoking book offers many beneficial features for clinicians and public health professionals: Clinical vignettes are included, designed to make the content accessible to readers who are primarily clinicians and also to demonstrate the practical, individual-level applicability of the subject matter for those who typically work at the public health, population, and/or policy level. Policy implications are discussed throughout, designed to make the content accessible to readers who work primarily at the public health or population level and also to demonstrate the policy relevance of the subject matter for those who typically work at the clinical level. All chapters include five to six key points that focus on the most important content, helping to both prepare the reader with a brief overview of the chapter's main points and reinforce the "take-away" messages afterward. In addition to the main body of the book, which focuses on selected individual social determinants of mental health, the volume includes an in-depth overview that summarizes the editors' and their colleagues' conceptualization, as well as a final chapter coauthored by Dr. David Satcher, 16th Surgeon General of the United States, that serves as a "Call to Action," offering specific actions that can be taken by both clinicians and policymakers to address the social determinants of mental health. The editors have succeeded in the difficult task of balancing the individual/clinical/patient perspective and the population/public health/community point of view, while underscoring the need for both groups to work in a unified way to address the inequities in twenty-first century America. The Social Determinants of Mental Health gives readers the tools to understand and act to improve mental health and reduce risk for mental illnesses for individuals and communities. Students preparing for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) will also benefit from this book, as the MCAT in 2015 will test applicants' knowledge of social determinants of health. The social determinants of mental health are not distinct from the social determinants of physical health, although they deserve special emphasis given the prevalence and burden of poor mental health.
Since the development of pharmacoconvulsive therapy in 1934 and of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in 1938, ECT has proven far more valuable than just the intervention of last resort. In comparison with psychotropic medications, we now know that ECT can act more effectively and more rapidly, with substantial clinical improvement that is often seen after only a few treatments. This is especially true for severely ill patients -- those with severe major depression with psychotic features, acute mania with psychotic features, or catatonia. For patients who are physically debilitated, elderly, or pregnant, ECT is also safer than psychotropic medications. The findings of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Task Force on ECT were published by the APA in 1990 as the first edition of The Practice of Electroconvulsive Therapy, inaugurating the development of ECT guidelines by groups both within the United States and internationally. Since then, advances in the use of this technically demanding treatment prompted the APA to mandate a second edition. The updated format of this second edition presents background information followed by a summary of applicable recommendations for each chapter. This close integration of the recommendations with their justifications makes the material easy to read, understand, and use. To further enhance usability, recommendations critical to the safe, effective delivery of treatment are marked with the designation "should" to distinguish them from recommendations that are advisable but nonessential (with the designations "encouraged," "suggested," "considered"). The updated content of this second edition, which spans indication for use of ECT, patient evaluation, side effects, concurrent medications, consent procedures (with sample consent forms and patient information booklet), staffing, treatment administration, monitoring of outcome, management of patients following ECT, and documentation, as well as education, and clinical privileging. This volume reflects not only the wide expertise of its contributors, but also involved solicitation of input from a variety of other sources, including applicable medical professional organizations, individual experts in relevant fields, regulatory bodies, and major lay mental health organizations. In addition, the bibliography of this second edition is based upon an exhaustive search of the clinical ECT literature over the past decade and contains more than four times the original number of citations. Complemented by extensive annotations and useful appendixes, this remarkably comprehensive yet practical overview will prove an invaluable resource for practitioners and trainees in psychiatry and related disciplines.