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Australian Medicines Handbook

The Australian Medicines Handbook or AMH is a medical reference text commonly used in practice by health professionals (particularly general practitioners and pharmacists) in Australia. It is a highly-regarded source of concise, independent drug information to aid in the practice of evidence-based medicine. The AMH is largely based on the model of the British National Formulary (BNF) but contains completely Australian content.

The AMH is published by an independent company – Australian Medicines Handbook Pty Ltd, based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Structure

The AMH contains three main types of information:

• drug monographs - relevant information about individual drugs by drug name (e.g. enalapril)
• class statements - relevant information about classes of drugs (e.g. ACE inhibitors)
• therapeutic considerations - relevant information about disease management and treatment selection (e.g. heart failure)

History

The idea of such a text was first proposed in 1991 and became a collaboration between the Australian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists (ASCEPT), the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). These three organisations continue to sponsor the production of the AMH.

After seven years of development, and with the aid of a Commonwealth grant, the first edition was published in May 1998. It was initially published every two years (1998, 2000 and 2002 editions), but has been published on an annual basis since 2002. The current edition, the sixth published, is the Australian Medicines Handbook 2005.

Past editions

• Misan GM (Ed.) (1998). Australian Medicines Handbook. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-6463532-6-8
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2000). Australian Medicines Handbook (2 ed.). Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook.
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2002). Australian Medicines Handbook 2002. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9578521-1-8
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2003). Australian Medicines Handbook 2003. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9578521-2-6
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2004). Australian Medicines Handbook 2004. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9578521-4-2
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2005). Australian Medicines Handbook 2005. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9578521-9-3