This comprehensive text offers a unique perspective on the needs of clients with psychiatric disorders. Its fresh and innovative approach is designed to help practitioners understand their clients so they can provide humanistic health care and disease treatment. Current issues in psychiatric mental health nursing affect the care of clients: health care reform, shorter inpatient stays, psycho biology, community care, and technology. The text offers a framework for dealing with these issues while providing a high level of care. The real-life experiences of clients with psychiatric disorders are presented through excerpts from literature, movie clips, and classic art. Special client populations are addressed: the physically ill client; the homeless and incarcerated; the child; the adolescent; the elderly; and survivors of violence or abuse.Emphasis on the art and science of nursing; art through the use of humanities (literary excerpts, movie clips), and science through the theoretical and eepidemiological base underlying disorders. (key words: psychiatric nursing, mental health nursing, psychiatric diorders, epidemiology, cultural assessment, nursing) Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.