Nurse Edw&m Todq ( 1992) l&396-398 0 Longman Group UK Ltd 1992

BOOK REVIEWS

WORK

Explaining Health & Illness W Stainton Rogers Harvester Wheatsheaf 1991 274pp illus ISBN: 0-7450-0765-l 511.95 PB

It’s a truism that the way patients or clients experience health and illness, will not necessarily be the same as we perceive these states. Health and illness are subjective, cultural and highly personal experiences, and this is made extremely clear in this useful summary by Wendy Stainton Rogers. The book cogently reviews how anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and others have helped us to map the patient’s experience of illness, before going on to illustrate the process through the author’s own research. It cannot be pretended that the picture painted is either neat, or that easy to translate into nurse education. Unfortu- nately, health matters are like that, the nurse practis- ing within a world where definitions of reality have constantly to be renegotiated. Nevertheless, this volume does provide a cogent handle on the complex- ities of it all. The author deals with the jargon, the competing, the competing definitions and claims to subject territory, with a touch of practical good sense and humour, so you will be encouraged to persevere and read on. It’s a nicely argued piece of work, with a good perspectives summary (Chap. 6) and a helpful insight into the process of researching social health. This volume should find a place in most health care libraries, and on the reading lists of degree and other advanced level courses.

BOB PRICE

SRN BA MSc Cerl Ed ARRC

Conceptual Foundations of Professional Nursing Practice J L Creasia & B Parker Mosby 991 679pp illus ISBN: 0-8016-6148-X 220.00 HB

Those interested in studying or teaching conceptual approaches to nursing and client care will find this an excellent text. As the title suggests the book adopts an essentially conceptual approach, a typical chapter is approximately 20 pages long and concisely outlines a specific concept relevant to nursing, practical appli- cations are then discussed together with a problem solving exercise. Reference sources are liberally used throughout the text though, as could be expected, there is a preponderance of American sources. Some

of the early chapters addressing issues such as political inffuences on health, economic issues in health care and legal relationships in nursing have a strong American flavour but never the less provide useful cross cultural insights.

Arguably the most innovative aspect of the book is a section of six chapters concerned with conceptualizing strengths. This section considers the concepts of social support, coping empowerment, hope, hardiness and humour. The theoretical basis of each of these is described together with their potential for positively influencing approaches to patient care. Overall a very interesting and informative book.

DAVII~ O‘BRIEN

BA BSc (How) RGN OHNC PGCE RNT

Beck’s Nutrition & Dietetics for Nurses 8th Ed Helen M. Barker Churchill Livingstone 1991 221pp illus ISBN: 0-443-03557-l f9.95 PB

This is the 8th edition of this book, first published in 1962 and a number of chapters have been substantially rewritten to incorporate information on advances which have been made in the knowledge base of nutrition. The initial chapters examine the consti- tuents of a balanced diet and explore the functions, sources, digestion and absorption of these consti- tuents. Further chapters discuss the role of the diet in a variety of diseases and disorders.

Amongst a number of revisions, the chapter on diet in disorders of the cardiovascular system has been reviewed in light of recent nutritional reports and also includes information on preventative aspects of coro- nary heart disease. There are also enlarged sections on food intolerance and allergies and new sections on food additives, food labelling and diet in HIV infec- tion. These sections are, however, brief and the reader with a particular interest in these areas would need to undertake further reading in order to gain full insight into the subject.

Throughout the text, there is information offered on such aspects as epidemiological studies and morbi- dity/mortality rates. It is unfortunate, however, that this includes much data for which no reference is supplied and the reader would have great difficulty in evaluating some of the advice the book contains.

Although this book contains some useful introduc- tory information on nutrition and diet, its usefulness is

396