Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse – Career and Education Profile

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Psychiatric mental health nurses (sometimes called just psychiatric nurses) work with patients dealing with mental disease, disabilities, and other problems.

Job Responsibilities

As a psychiatric mental health nurse, your job will entail working with patients who are dealing with medical conditions such as depressing, schizophrenia, paranoia, psychosis, panic disorder, dementia, post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction, mental retardation, and other types of mental illness. As a nurse working with these patients, you could perform tasks such as counseling patients, tracking patient progress, working with doctors to develop a treatment plan, assisting patients with hygiene tasks, and administering medications. Your specific tasks will depend on the facility where you work. You could work with the same patients on a daily basis in a long-term care facility, for example, or you could treat patients in an outpatient care facility or even provide mental health screening services or education.

Salary and Career Options

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association reports that psychiatric mental health nurses make around $40,000 annually as registered nurses. You can make more money by becoming an advanced practice nurse in the field of mental health, and location is also a major factor when it comes to salary expectations. Additionally, you can chose to specialize in one area of mental health, such as geriatrics or a specific kind of mental disease.

Educational Requirements

You can start working as a psychiatric mental health nurse as an LPN, but as this education doesn’t allow for much specialization, many nurses interested in this field opt to become RNs through an LPN-to-RN or regular RN degree program, which allows you to earn an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. You can also consider earning a master’s degree in this field, and after you’ve gained experience as mental health nurse, you can apply for certifications in this field.

LPN to RN College Programs

While several schools have online nursing degrees available, few offer LPN to RN programs. What's the good news? We have listed some accredited schools below that do offer the program in addition to schools with other bridge programs available. Find out more information and contact each school by using any of the links below.

Indiana State University—Indiana State University offers a robust online program designed for LPNs wanting to become registered nurses and earn their BSN degree. Since ISU's credits transfer to over 80 campus majors, this is an ideal program for people wanting to open opportunities for their career down the road.

The College Network—The College Network is a partnership with several universities and organizations like the National League for Nursing that focuses on online education and programs, with several courses for nurses or those interested in a nursing career. Specifically, TCN helps students prepare for their PN and RN licensures and move on to earn graduate degrees.

Other Nursing Degrees

Walden University—Walden University is typically a graduate school with several masters and doctoral programs available, but they do have BSN and RN to MSN bridge programs available. Walden is based out of Minneapolis and offers several options in transferring your previously earned credits to and from (or even within) the school.

Kaplan University—Kaplan University is one of the nation's largest and leading online educators and offers several bridge programs for registered nurses to earn their BSN or MSN degree. If you have previously earned credits, Kaplan makes it easy for you to transfer to any one of their undergraduate or graduate programs.

Herzing University—While Herzing University does not offer an undergraduate nursing degree, it is a great choice for working nurses wanting to pursue leadership positions in Nurse Education or Management. With over 10 campuses and 45 online programs available, Herzing has a massive network that makes it easy to transfer to or from the school.

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