According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, more than $5.8 billion or on an average $270 per person is spent on mental healthcare each year in Australia. Mental health is one of the leading burdens on the Australian health care system. Therefore, there are several mental health jobs and related opportunities are open for psychiatric nurses. However duties and the demands of such jobs are different from those of a registered nurse. Let us discuss this job profile in detail.

Duties and Responsibilities of Psychiatric Nurse at Mental Health Jobs

Here are the core duties and responsibilities of a psychiatric nurse at different mental health jobs:
• Areas of work

People suffer from mental illnesses usually after experiencing major crisis in life, such as accidents, death of the partner and prolonged depression. A psychiatrist nurse contributes to the healthcare of people suffering from neuroses, psychological/ personality disorders and psychoses.
• Challenges

The main challenge for a registered nurse at mental health jobs is to develop therapeutic relationships with the patient and patient’s family and close relatives. A psychiatric nurse has to shoulder the danger of violence at the hands of mentally ill patients. However, with the strength of their personality and excellent communication skills, nurses can not only calm the patient down but encourage them to be supportive during the treatment.
• Responsibilities

A competent psychiatric nurse is expected to assess and evaluate both mental and medical health history of the patient. This helps the nurse to adopt a particular care plan which is more beneficial for the patient’s overall treatment.
• Duties

A dutiful psychiatric nurse conducts the healthcare program and assesses the patient’s condition thoroughly. Therefore, during critical situations such nurses can offer development and improvement suggestions to the on-going healthcare system.
• Team

The team that a mental health nurse is usually offered to work with may involve, general practitioners, social workers, psychiatrist, clinical psychologists, occupational therapist and art therapists.
• Sub-specialties

According to the choice of field and interest, nurses can choose one of the following sub-specialties to work at:
o Child and Adolescent psychiatry: The candidate will be dealing with under-18 patients suffering from various mental conditions.
o Eating disorders: Candidates will be primarily working with anorexic and bulimia patients.
o Chemical dependency: Nurses will be employed to care for drug and alcohol addicts.
o Trauma: Candidates will develop and execute care plans for those who are mentally disturbed due to some incidents in their lives.

There could be more sub-specialties under mental health nursing depending on the educational institution one visits.

Resource Box: If you are an aspiring http://www.mentalhealthjobs.net.au psychiatric nurse, you can visit mentalhealthjobs.net.au to keep up with the latest http://www.mentalhealthjobs.net.au mental health jobs and other career development opportunities. The website is powered by Nursing Career Allied Health (NCAH) that has been providing employment, education services for healthcare professionals across Australia and overseas since 1995.