Medical prescriptions always involve a significant extent of liability on behalf of nurses who provide them to patients. The described responsibility is particularly high for a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, whose choices define the mental well-being of patients. Due to the specifics of legal standards for prescriptions of psychiatric medicine in Florida, nurses of local organizations may face certain challenges when giving a prescription. Among the key problems, off-label prescription has become a problematic tendency that needs to be addressed on several levels. The problem concerning the off-label prescriptions of opioids has partially been handled in the recent legal changes (Rossi, Giordano, & Okun, 2017). Due to tighter restrictions on the use of psychiatric drugs, the off-label prescription of opioids has been reduced slightly (Schatman, Vasciannie, & Kulich, 2019). Nonetheless, the instances of the described phenomenon continue to take place in the Florida healthcare environment.
Moreover, among the problems of prescribing psychiatric drugs that are specific to Florida, one should explore the tendency among Florida nurses to overprescribe psychiatric medications to patients. While the observed trend in decision-making among Florida nurses does not border legal standards, it still harms patients and limits the professional scope of nurses’ practice (Sacarny, Yokum, Finkelstein, & Agrawal, 2016). Without exploring innovative solutions and approaches toward administering medications to patients, nurses will be unable to deliver the healthcare services of the expected quality to their target demographic (Bobo et al., 2019). Therefore, the problem of overprescription should also be addressed, not on a legal level, but on administrative and clinical ones. With a change in the strategy for managing mental disorders toward a more considerate use of medications and therapy, nurses will be capable of improving the quality of their patient’s lives and create additional opportunities for recovery or health progress.
References
Bobo, W. V., Grossardt, B. R., Lapid, M. I., Leung, J. G., Stoppel, C., Takahashi, P. Y.,… & Flowers, L. (2019). Frequency and predictors of the potential overprescribing of antidepressants in elderly residents of a geographically defined US population. Pharmacology Research & Perspectives, 7(1), 1-15. Web.
Rossi, P. J., Giordano, J., & Okun, M. S. (2017). The problem of funding off-label deep brain stimulation: Bait-and-switch tactics and the need for policy reform. JAMA Neurology, 74(1), 9-10. Web.
Sacarny, A., Yokum, D., Finkelstein, A., & Agrawal, S. (2016). Medicare letters to curb overprescribing of controlled substances had no detectable effect on providers. Health Affairs, 35(3), 471-479. Web.
Schatman, M. E., Vasciannie, A., & Kulich, R. J. (2019). Opioid moderatism and the imperative of rapprochement in pain medicine. Journal of Pain Research, 12, 649-657. Web.