South African clinical nurse practitioner's manual

Primary health care in South Africa is mainly delivered by clinical nurse practitioners with the support of family physicians. South African clinical nurse practitioner's manual, an adaptation of South African family practice manual, focuses on practical skills that clinical nurse practitioners should obtain during their training and will use in their professional practice. South African clinical nurse practitioner's manual deals with aspects of clinical examination and common procedures, as well as key proficiencies in areas of communication, occupational health, research, teaching and health care administration. It provides the theory and the practical steps of routine skills as well as emergency care over a full spectrum of primary care - from the newborn to the elderly. It also looks at topical issues in the South African context, including community-orientated primary care. Contents include the following: General assessment and physical examination; consultation and communication; interpretation of laboratory results; algorithms for emergencies; community-based interventions; developing clinical guidelines; writing articles for publication. Owing to the fact that clinical nurse practitioner training is becoming more formalised in all provinces, this manual forms an integral part of these training programmes, and should prove invaluable to this field of nursing.