Mental Health Nurse Practitioner: Nurses take care of people when they even do not want to live. The nurse not only works on wounds but also works on emotional and mental morals—the nurse work on mental health care. The nurse who specialized in handling patients for mental healing is known as Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNPs).
Psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners are registered nurse of advance practice whose work is to provide wide-ranging mental health care to patients who are suffering from the behavioural problem and mental health disorder. Psychiatric nurses not only provide diagnostic care but also focus on psychiatric or mental health maintenance. The mental health nurses try to provide both medical and therapeutic intervention for the treatment of patients.
Mental health nurse practitioner
The nurse work not only with the patients they work with patient’s families too. They also research and contributes to mental health policy development. The nurse who purses PhD or an Ed.D qualifies the psychiatric nurse practitioner to work as an administrator, professor, or research. Each state sets its specific guidelines for treatment, which states what a psychiatric nurse practitioner can and cannot administer in his or her practice.
The fields in which the psychiatric nurse practitioner typically work in the following areas:
- Child and adolescent mental health nursing
- Forensic
- Gerontological psychiatric nursing
- Substance abuse
How to Become a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
The psychiatric nurse focus on the treatment of patients like bipolar disease, schizophrenia and another mental issue. The nurses who are willing to pursue psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner has to go through training just like a medical nurse go through. They can work on making treatment planning, diagnosis symptoms and prescribe medication. The psychiatric nurse plays a vital role in the lives of a person who has a mental illness or emotional fluctuation severely. The nurse to get registered for this position have to qualify a lot of educational hurdles. Let us discuss it stepwise.
- Bachelors of Science in Nursing –The nurse has to pursue a bachelors’ degree that is Bachelors of Science in Nursing. In this, the aspirant’s sturdy foundation of nursing, microbiology, public health care, nutrition, anatomy, physiology, health assessment, and many more related to the medical field.
They also have to be updated with the latest health care norms and medications apart from theoretical knowledge. Students should have excellent communication skills to handle any critical situation. Not only communication, but the nurse also have to be good with problem-solving skills, critical thinking, leadership skills and many more. Besides, the nurse has to fulfil the clinical observation hours, which will help them to develop a better understanding of the nursing profession.
- National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN) – After completion of the Bachelors’ degree, the nurse has to crack the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN). The nurses have to pass this exam to work as a registered nurse in every state in the United States. The national council licensure examination is an online exam which means it is a computer-based exam administered by Non- Profitable Organization.
The examination is divided into four categories and six subcategories. They are as follows:
- Physiological adaptation
- Pharmacological and parenteral therapies
- Reduction of Risk potential
- Basic care and comfort
- Physiological integrity
- Safe and effective care environment
- Safety and infection control
- Psychosocial integrity
- Management of care
- Health promotion and maintenance
- Masters, postgraduate or doctoral degree
As the nurse get registered nurse, now the nurse can go for a higher degree like masters to go for specialization and work for medical care nursing department. During post-graduate studies, the nurse has to practice working individually or independently and also with collaboration with various medical fields. The nurse should finally aim for working as advanced practice nursing.
Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner qualities
The psychiatric nurse works independently and also prescribe medication in supervisor guidance. The psychiatric nurse practitioner needs to practice many things to become a skill, full nurse. Some of them were discussed below
- Emotional control – the patients whom the nurse have to treat were suffered from much emotional trauma like abuse, violence or victim of crime. They need to be handled very carefully, and for that, the nurse should have an emotional control on himself first.
- Emotional intelligence – working with mental health patient will surely going to be emotionally draining. The nurse should try to understand the feeling and situation of the patient and should know how to communicate in that situation.
- Communication –the communication places a significant role in this type of treatment, the nurse should know when to whisper and when to take strict action.
- Non-judgemental – as the patients suffering from a critical situation, the nurse has to respect the feeling and words of the patient. The nurse should not judge the conversation of the patients and their situation in a negative way which may impact the patients mentally more.
- Patience – the nurse, should practice tremendous patience, as the patient will take time to lay trust on you. So practising patience will take time and it will come with experience.
Roles and duties of a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
The psychiatric nurse work in a broad pace, they work with various age group and if necessary their family too. They have many responsibilities to work on. Some of them discussed below:
- Observe patients history
- Monitoring symptoms
- Assessing the cause of mental illness like:
- developmental issue
- Genetics
- Family dysfunction
- Neurotically trauma
- Working with children with a behavioural or emotional disorder
- They are helping patients to cope up with the cognitive disorder.
- We are conducting counselling sessions for individual, groups or families.
Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
The nurse in this department gets approximately $71,485 to $129,837 per year. The pay scale varies from patient to patient, location and other factors too. Even experienced and skills to play a role in pay scale and also excellent skills can promo nurse to a higher position.
Complete the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and Get the license as RN and Work in it.
It is a nothing but helping the patients with different psychiatric disorders and illnesses.
Complete the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and Get the license as RN and Work in it.
NP responsible for the assessing the mental health status of patients by studying their relevant medical history.
It completely depend upon the Work load and City or Hospital wise norms.