What Is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner?
A psychiatric nurse practitioner is an advanced practice R.N. who provides services to individuals, groups and families at risk for psychiatric disorders and mental health problems. The psychiatric nurse practitioner is a specialist providing mental health services to patients, and this includes assessing, diagnosing and managing mental health and psychiatric disorders, including medication management.
Credentialing
After graduating from an accredited school with a Master of Science degree in nursing, with psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner tracks, an R.N. must pass the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s competency to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner (www.nursecredentialing.org/). The advanced-degree nurse chooses to credential either as an adult psychiatric nurse practitioner or as a family psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Clinical practice services
After completing the credentialing process, the psychiatric nurse practitioner specializing in adult or family mental health is able to provide a complete range of mental health services. These services include performing histories and psychosocial and physical assessments, ordering and interpreting test results, recommending and providing treatment for patients, administering therapeutic procedures and counseling patients.
Psychiatric nurse practitioners, also called mental health nurse practitioners, very often treat patients with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and addictions. Independent practices are career options in more than 20 states, but often the psychiatric nurse practitioner will work with a psychiatrist to provide a wide variety of mental health services to patients. Prescribing therapy and prescription writing usually requires physician approval, and in some states, prescription privileges are not extended to nurse practitioners.
Practice settings
A psychiatric nurse practitioner is able to work in a variety of clinical settings, such as inpatient psychiatry, emergency and urgent psychiatry, outpatient mental health services and psychiatric consult-liaison services. Although the psychiatric nurse practitioner has multiple options open, the hospital setting is most often chosen by mental health nurse practitioners, where they typically work diagnosing and treating patients with psychiatric or mental health problems.
According to research by payscale.com, the typical salary for psychiatric nurse practitioners ranges between $71,044 and $94,532.
