Psychiatric Aide Assist mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed patients, working under direction of nursing and medical staff. May assist with daily living activities, lead patients in educational and recreational activities, or accompany patients to and from examinations and treatments. May restrain violent patients. Includes psychiatric orderlies.
Psychiatric Aide is Also Know as
In different settings, Psychiatric Aide is titled as
- Developmental Aide
- Mental Health Aide (MHA)
- Mental Health Worker (MHW)
- Psychiatric Aide
- Psychiatric Assistant
- Psychiatric Nursing Aide
- Qualified Medication Aide (QMA)
- Resident Care Technician (Resident Care Tech)
- Residential Care Tech (Residential Care Technician)
- Therapeutic Program Worker (TPW)
Education and Training of Psychiatric Aide
Psychiatric Aide is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Psychiatric Aide
Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.
Education Required for Psychiatric Aide
These occupations usually require a high school diploma.
Degrees Related to Psychiatric Aide
- Bachelor in Psychiatric/Mental Health Services Technician
- Associate Degree Courses in Psychiatric/Mental Health Services Technician
- Masters Degree Courses in Psychiatric/Mental Health Services Technician
- Bachelor in Health Aide
- Associate Degree Courses in Health Aide
- Masters Degree Courses in Health Aide
Training Required for Psychiatric Aide
Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Psychiatric Aide in different industries are
- Psychiatric Technicians
- Physical Therapist Aides
- Nursing Assistants
- Home Health Aides
- Occupational Therapy Aides
- Physical Therapist Assistants
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Registered Nurses
- Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses
- Medical Assistants
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
- Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
- Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
- Mental Health Counselors
- Clinical Nurse Specialists
- Acute Care Nurses
- Healthcare Social Workers
- Nurse Practitioners
- Recreational Therapists
- Psychiatrists
What Do Psychiatric Aide do?
- Provide mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed patients with routine physical, emotional, psychological, or rehabilitation care under the direction of nursing or medical staff.
- Work as part of a team that may include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, or social workers.
- Aid patients in becoming accustomed to hospital routines.
- Organize, supervise, or encourage patient participation in social, educational, or recreational activities.
- Perform nursing duties, such as administering medications, measuring vital signs, collecting specimens, or drawing blood samples.
- Serve meals or feed patients needing assistance or persuasion.
- Restrain or aid patients as necessary to prevent injury.
- Interview patients upon admission and record information.
- Provide patients with assistance in bathing, dressing, or grooming, demonstrating these skills as necessary.
- Participate in recreational activities with patients, including card games, sports, or television viewing.
- Maintain patients' restrictions to assigned areas.
- Accompany patients to and from wards for medical or dental treatments, shopping trips, or religious or recreational events.
- Clean and disinfect rooms and furnishings to maintain a safe and orderly environment.
- Complete physical checks and monitor patients to detect unusual or harmful behavior and report observations to professional staff.
- Record and maintain patient information, such as vital signs, eating habits, behavior, progress notes, treatments, or discharge plans.
- Complete administrative tasks, such as entering orders into computer, answering telephone calls, or maintaining medical or facility information.
- Listen and provide emotional support and encouragement to psychiatric patients.
Qualities of Good Psychiatric Aide
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- 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).
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry 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.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- 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.
- 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.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- 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.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- 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.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Psychiatric Aide
- Automatic blood pressure cuffs
- Bedpans
- Blood collection syringes
- Desktop computers
- Digital patient thermometers
- Enema equipment
- Evacuated blood collection tubes
- Hydraulic patient lifts
- Intubation suctioning kits
- Multi-line telephone systems
- Oxygen delivery masks
- Patient restraints
- Personal computers
- Safety razors
- Specimen collection containers
- Two way radios
- Urinalysis test strips
- Wheelchairs
Technology Skills required for Psychiatric Aide
- Email software
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Windows
- Microsoft Word
- Patient management software