Does my mental illness make me unfit to be a nurse?

Nurses General Nursing

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"Applicants who have been convicted of a felony or treated for mental illness or substance abuse should discuss their eligibility status with the Utah State Board of Nursing. The Utah State Board of Nursing makes final decisions on issue of license."

I have severe anxiety. I have worked as both a CNA and a CMA and it has never gotten in the way of my job performance. I'm currently pregnant so I'm not taking the medication as per my OB and it has come back full swing... but still does not affect my performance. I will obviously have to contact the BON to see, but what are my chances?

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

Interesting. I take medication for depression and anxiety, and it has never once been an issue, nor has it ever been brought to my attention that it might be an issue in my state. But, all states are different I guess.

I guess, give your BON a call and ask them, but I would think you are OK with your average case of generalized anxiety that has been well treated and controlled.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

If it does not affect your performance, there is absolutely no reason to call your BON.

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Thank you much for taking the time to reply!

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Check your BON website. Some of them expound on things there to outline specific mental illnesses that they are concerned about....usually things like borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

It can be a real Catch-22. One one hand, if you believe that a personal health issue does not affect your practice, it certainly should not be relevant.... but, if you do a routine drug screen and any meds pop up, you're going to have to disclose health information. I monitor multi-state BON disciplinary actions as part of my job, and "Failure to disclose" appears to have a more negative licensure impact than just letting them know beforehand.

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Specializes in LTC and Pediatrics.

The ones I have dealt with ask about mental health hospitalization. As was said in a previous post, check the BON website to see if there is any further explanation.

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Specializes in ICU.
It can be a real Catch-22. One one hand, if you believe that a personal health issue does not affect your practice, it certainly should not be relevant.... but, if you do a routine drug screen and any meds pop up, you're going to have to disclose health information. I monitor multi-state BON disciplinary actions as part of my job, and "Failure to disclose" appears to have a more negative licensure impact than just letting them know beforehand.

Does your BON do random drug screens on nurses? I was just wondering if that was a thing?

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Specializes in retired LTC.

Might this just be a UNIQUE thing to Utah? Utah is a pretty much CONSERVATIVE state.

You can check with a lawyer familiar with Utah nsg issues but that might be costly.

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Severe anxiety can of course have impact on your well being and how you interact with other people, and negatively influence memory. I doubt that the BON will see severe anxiety as a problem unless you are on heavy duty medications.

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Thank you for the comments every one!

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Might this just be a UNIQUE thing to Utah? Utah is a pretty much CONSERVATIVE state.

You can check with a lawyer familiar with Utah nsg issues but that might be costly.

I was thinking the same thing. Also, I would NOT disclose the BON!! However, as someone above said if you don't disclose if taking prescribed meds that show up in drug test, that's when it's an issue.

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