Psychiatric nursing and technical skills question

[redbullz9]

I am considering doing an ABSN and eventually a masters to become a psych NP. I would like to work as a psych nurse for a few years after my ABSN before starting my masters.

I wanted to know how technical skill heavy psych nursing is and how often I should expect to do each task/procedure ? Are there psych nursing settings where the amount of procedures done is relatively low? I'd also be interested in finding out in what psychiatric settings new graduates commonly find work in and what type of work they do there (e.g. most common types of technical skills used; most common challenges; types of patients; what a typical day looks like).

This question is about psych nursing, not psych NP work, which I know is very different.

Thanks for your feedback!

[FolksBtrippin, BSN, RN]

I'm a psych nurse. By "procedures" do you mean technical skills?

Inpatient technical stuff I did: vital signs, bloog glucose checks, subq injections, IM injections, tb placement and reading, ekgs, restraints.

Non technical procedures include admissions, discharges, groups.

Now I work in the community. I do long acting injections, vitals, assessments and lots of odds and ends type stuff.

Where I live, a new grad can start mostly anywhere.

[redbullz9]

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, by procedures I mean technical skills.

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

As a person who has done Psych for a long time - I still advise new grads to get some floor and assessment experience before jumping into Psych. You will need those skills when you are trying to determine if a patient's symptoms are somatic or real. As far skills required it will depend on setting. We do EKG's, dressing changes head to toe assessments. lung sounds, etc...... in gero-psych you may do foley care, wound management, Blood sugar checks etc.....

Cautionary tale is that we had a recent poster on another thread who never did floor nursing and admitted they couldn't even do a manual blood pressure. Don't let this happen to you.

Hppy

[cleback]

You will probably see a bit of everything, although at a lower frequency than a medical floor.

IVs for ECT.

IM injections for psych meds in emergencies. SQ for insulins.

Lots of CIWAs.

Wound care, particularly those who self harmed.

Even had a patient needing trach care after the patient tried to stab themself in the throat.

Maybe you'll also see some pregnant women having gone off med for their pregnancy and having an acute episode and needing fetal monitoring q shift.

And of course, those with debilitating psychiatric illness likely are not to have well managed medical diagnoses, so be confident in physical assessments.

Honestly, any kind of nursing experience will help in psych and vice versa.

[Sour Lemon]

It depends on the type of psych unit you're working on, entirely. Some do just about everything and some do just about nothing.

[redbullz9]

In what settings/type of clinics are you most likely to find the "do just about nothing" psych nursing jobs?