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A primary mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) plays a crucial role in providing mental health services. Psychiatric nurse practitioners frequently function as educators to patients, their caregivers, medical peers, and communities, promoting the concept that mental health is an important part of overall health. The function of a PMHNP is critical in shifting public perceptions of mental health care and reducing stigmas connected with the treatment of mental health (Creamer and Austin, 2017). PMHNPs must be good connection builders and collaborators in addition to being educators. Patients and their families build deep therapeutic ties with psychiatric nurses. They also collaborate with other medical specialists to track patients’ improvement.
Additionally, a PMHNP provides a diagnosis for mental health illnesses and coordinates care treatment. PMHNPs serve patients in a variety of contexts. For example, hospital emergency rooms, nursing homes, addiction treatment programs, mental health centers, government agencies, and other clinics. Patients include all ages starting from teenagers to elderly people. Yet, some nurses have a specific focus on working with mental health issues.
All prospective effective treatment techniques for a patient must be carefully considered by mental health care experts. PMHNPs analyze a patient’s medical conditions and health to discover underlying medical issues and any pharmaceutical side effects in order to thoroughly assess a patient’s well-being. PMHNPs frequently communicate and work with other critical persons in the patient’s life, such as family members and health care specialists like therapists and primary care physicians, as part of a holistic treatment strategy (Delaney et al., 2018). Patients may also be referred to other health providers for treatment by PMHNPs. The nurses serve as connectors between mental health specialists and patients and work to ensure effective collaboration.
PMHNPs have dual roles as psychopharmacologist and psychotherapist, as such, they have some opportunities and challenges in this regard. Due to their dual roles, nurses may provide a comprehensive analysis of cases and provide the best treatment for patients, using knowledge from both fields. The psychiatric nurse possesses a breadth of knowledge and skills that distinguishes the nursing care delivered to persons with psychiatric diseases in a variety of ways.
As psychotherapist nurses, they observe a patient’s behavior and provide a therapy treatment along with supplemental medication. They engage in conversation with patients and apply psychological methods to improve patients’ mental health. Specific conditions of neurobiological brain illnesses are treated with psychoactive medications. Drug therapy, on the other hand, does not treat all patient behaviors, and it does not treat every symptom of sickness (Gabrielsson et al., 2020). Therefore, a nurse may convince patients not to use drugs and help in their treatment. Moreover, knowing some aspects of psychopharmacology make a PMHNP be prepared if patients are concerned about the drug treatment. A nurse can also explain some details regarding the treatment and show what to do in an emergency situation.
Challenges in having dual roles as psychopharmacologist and psychotherapist can be associated with the education of nurses. It is difficult to process the knowledge of both fields, and often, nurses have only basic information. In addition, preparing to administer drugs by demonstrating psychopharmacological competency is one of the most difficult problems that psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner (PMNHP) trainees face (Spetz et al., 2019). Moreover, some difficulties with pharmaceutical treatment adherence, decision-making, and symptom-related outcome monitoring are also challenging. However, deeper education can help nurses develop the abilities they need to take on more responsibility and advance in their jobs. In the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program, students receive rigorous training as well as two on-campus intensives to deepen their advanced practice nursing expertise and prepare them to be leaders in the industry.
References
Creamer, A. M., & Austin, W. (2017). Canadian nurse practitioner core competencies identified: An opportunity to build mental health and illness skills and knowledge. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 13(5), e231-e236.
Delaney, K. R., Naegle, M. A., Valentine, N. M., Antai-Otong, D., Groh, C. J., & Brennaman, L. (2018). The effective use of psychiatric mental health nurses in integrated care: Policy implications for increasing quality and access to care. The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 45(2), 300-309.
Gabrielsson, S., Tuvesson, H., Wiklund Gustin, L., & Jormfeldt, H. (2020). Positioning psychiatric and mental health nursing as a transformative force in health care. Issues in mental health nursing, 41(11), 976-984.
Spetz, J., Toretsky, C., Chapman, S., Phoenix, B., & Tierney, M. (2019). Nurse practitioner and physician assistant waivers to prescribe buprenorphine and state scope of practice restrictions. Jama, 321(14), 1407-1408.
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