How to become Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse in 2024

Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse Assess, diagnose, and treat individuals and families with mental health or substance use disorders or the potential for such disorders. Apply therapeutic activities, including the prescription of medication, per state regulations, and the administration of psychotherapy.

Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse is Also Know as

In different settings, Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse is titled as

  • Adult Psychiatric Mental Health APRN (Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Advanced Practice Registered Nurse)
  • Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse
  • APN (Advanced Practice Nurse)
  • Board Certified Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist (BC PMH-CNS)
  • PMHNP (Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner)
  • Psychiatric APN (Psychiatric Advanced Practice Nurse)
  • Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist (Psychiatric CNS)
  • Psychiatric NP (Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner)
  • Psychiatric Provider
  • Psychiatry APRN (Psychiatry Advanced Practice Registered Nurse)

Education and Training of Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

Training Required for Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse in different industries are

What Do Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse do?

  • Teach classes in mental health topics, such as stress reduction.
  • Participate in activities aimed at professional growth and development, including conferences or continuing education activities.
  • Direct or provide home health services.
  • Monitor the use and status of medical and pharmaceutical supplies.
  • Develop practice protocols for mental health problems, based on review and evaluation of published research.
  • Develop, implement, or evaluate programs such as outreach activities, community mental health programs, and crisis situation response activities.
  • Treat patients for routine physical health problems.
  • Write prescriptions for psychotropic medications as allowed by state regulations and collaborative practice agreements.
  • Refer patients requiring more specialized or complex treatment to psychiatrists, primary care physicians, or other medical specialists.
  • Provide routine physical health screenings to detect or monitor problems such as heart disease and diabetes.
  • Participate in treatment team conferences regarding diagnosis or treatment of difficult cases.
  • Interpret diagnostic or laboratory tests, such as electrocardiograms (EKGs) and renal functioning tests.
  • Evaluate patients' behavior to formulate diagnoses or assess treatments.
  • Develop and implement treatment plans.
  • Monitor patients' medication usage and results.
  • Educate patients and family members about mental health and medical conditions, preventive health measures, medications, or treatment plans.
  • Distinguish between physiologically- and psychologically-based disorders, and diagnose appropriately.
  • Document patients' medical and psychological histories, physical assessment results, diagnoses, treatment plans, prescriptions, or outcomes.
  • Consult with psychiatrists or other professionals when unusual or complex cases are encountered.
  • Assess patients' mental and physical status, based on the presenting symptoms and complaints.
  • Collaborate with interdisciplinary team members, including psychiatrists, psychologists, or nursing staff, to develop, implement, or evaluate treatment plans.
  • Administer medications, including those administered by injection.
  • Diagnose psychiatric disorders and mental health conditions.
  • Conduct individual, group, or family psychotherapy for those with chronic or acute mental disorders.

Qualities of Good Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.

Tools Used by Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

  • Binocular light compound microscopes
  • Blood pressure cuffs
  • Catheters
  • Electrocardiogram
  • Handheld thermometers
  • Hypodermic needles
  • Intravenous IV pumps
  • Laser facsimile machines
  • Mechanical restraints
  • Mechanical stethoscopes
  • Medication administration systems
  • Nebulizers
  • Personal computers
  • Photocopiers
  • Sphygmomanometers
  • Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS equipment

Technology Skills required for Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

  • AUDIT-C
  • Beck Anxiety Inventory
  • Beck Depression Inventory
  • Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale BPRS Nursing Modification
  • California Verbal Learning Test
  • Category Fluency Test
  • Children's Depression Inventory
  • Controlled Oral Word Association Task
  • Electroconvulsive therapy equipment
  • Epic HER
  • Geriatric Depression Scale
  • Hendrich Falls Risk Model
  • Invivo Data EPX ePRO Management System
  • Medical condition coding software
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft Word
  • Millon Behavioral Medicine Diagnostic
  • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 MMPI-2
  • Myers Briggs Type Indicator
  • NEO PI-R
  • Patient Health Questionaire
  • Patient management software
  • SAS
  • Web browser software
  • Young Mania Rating Scale
  • Zung Depression Rating Scale