This assignment is intended to help you learn to apply the concepts of the pharmacotherapeutics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of broad categories of medications.
Overview
Major depressive disorder impacts more than 150 million people worldwide. In this discussion post, address the following topics for your initial post:
- Special populations and depression.
- Antidepressants and suicide: What resources are available nationally and in your area for patients experiencing thoughts of suicide?
- When treating depression, what factors are involved in selecting the most appropriate therapy? Choose one of the most commonly used medications and describe the pharmacodynamics and pharmacogenetics.
- How to monitor a patient’s response to drug therapy.
Action Items
- Choose a topic from the overview section. Next, choose a person you know or have worked with who “fits” with that topic. By this, we mean choose someone who is part of a special population and has depression; or someone you have worked with who struggled with suicidal thoughts; or someone who had depression; or someone who was experiencing drug therapy. Choosing someone will help contextualize your learning in this activity. If you do not know of anyone in this situation then look at a case study or two that can be found with a Google search. as best you can, describe the person and his or her situation to give a good idea to your peers of the person and his or her background. Support your answers with at least two credible pieces of evidence outside of your textbook using APA citations and references.
- Read all of your classmate's posts. Select a peer, preferably one who does not already have a response, and reply by identifying two distinct actions, roles or responsibilities that an advanced practice nurse should assume in the example given by the classmate. Contrast this with the actions, roles, or responsibilities of other nurses without advanced practice training (educator, registered nurse, licensed practical nurse, nurse manager) would have in the described scenario.
- Return to your original post and read what a peer wrote in response to your work. Identify something that peer wrote, or anything else you saw on this discussion board, that would be important for you apply as an advanced practice nurse. Briefly give rationale for your idea. A minimum of one citation/reference is needed for the reply post.