The nurse or care coordinator in an Early Intervention in Psychosis service has the most consistent clinical presence in a young person's life during the period in which treatment matters most. Yet the clinical literature on early psychosis addresses multidisciplinary teams, psychologists, and psychiatrists. The EIP nurse has been working from general texts and adapting.
A Practical Nursing-Specific Guide to Early Psychosis Care
First Episode Psychosis Nursing provides practical, evidence-based guidance on every core task in the EIP care coordinator role. Across 14 chapters, readers develop skills in engaging disengaged young people, completing EIP-specific assessments, delivering family psychoeducation, monitoring antipsychotic metabolic risk, supporting medication adherence, building personalised relapse prevention plans, managing crisis presentations, addressing common comorbidities including cannabis use and post-psychotic depression, and planning discharge transitions that protect the gains of the critical period.
What Sets This Handbook Apart
Every chapter is structured around what the nurse specifically does, not around a multidisciplinary framework in which nursing is one voice among many. The book applies a clinical framework to engagement, recovery-oriented care planning, and relapse prevention that draws on the established evidence base for early intervention in psychosis and situates that evidence within caseload realities. Composite case studies throughout illustrate how the frameworks translate into practice, including the contacts where things do not go as planned.
This book is for readers who:
Work as care coordinators or community psychiatric nurses in an EIP service and want a clinical reference organised around their specific role. Are moving to an EIP team from a generic CMHT post and need a practical framework for the differences the role demands. Are mental health nursing students on an EIP placement. Are team leads or clinical educators seeking a structured resource for nursing induction and professional development. Are experienced EIP nurses who want to revisit the evidence base in physical health monitoring, family work, or relapse prevention.
A Clinical Foundation for EIP Nursing
For nurses and care coordinators who want to apply the evidence to their caseload and develop practice that is specific to the demands of early psychosis nursing, this handbook provides a structured and clinically grounded place to start.
