A PMHNP or Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Essay

NURSING AbstractThe growing needs of behavioral and mental healthcare have enforced the state regulation to rethink psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners across the country. The advanced practicing specialties need to be greatly emphasized in this field since its cost0-effective option grants a new role to these nurse practitioners for assessing, evaluating, diagnosing, and suggesting therapeutic interventions for the individuals who need prompt mental healthcare. The following paper aims to explore the role of psychiatric nurse practitioners and their function in the medical field. The comparison and contrast would be made for observing the ideal role in research and theory with relevance to its actual application in practice. The evidence-based practice guidelines would signify the practice domains of this role matching the job description of the nurse practitioner. Besides, the leadership functions of the role would be examined for gauging its effective use in behavioral healthcare provision. The last section would discuss how the current United States healthcare structure, specifically the Affordable Care Act, impacts psychiatric nurse practitioners role across the states.Nursing: Role PaperThe role of a psychiatric mental healthcare nurse is crucial for assessing the needs of a patients mental health since the families and the society that are linked to the individual are also affected by one persons mental condition. The advanced health and health services that these nurse practitioners provide are symbolic in their area. Their skills are advanced and support the transformation of mental healthcare research and education. This paper explores this role in depth by comparing and contrasting the ideal and observed roles based on the professional guidelines. The additional sections of this paper discuss its actual application of practice following the learnings from theory.Job DescriptionA PMHNP or Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner is responsible for examining, diagnosing, and treating the mental health requirements of the affected individuals (American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 2019). They should provide the needed therapy and prescribe medicines to the patients prone to mental illnesses or even affected by substance abuse difficulties. When the need is felt, the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner runs physical assessments on the patient to detect the treatment needs and whether the treatments would be effective based on the current mental conditions. Psychosocial assessments are also made when the nurse views that they are crucial for the diagnosis necessities of the patient, and the provision of emergency care is dependent on these observations. From the stage of diagnosis, the psychiatric nurse practitioners work for the mental health betterment of the individuals till the end-of-life care. They fulfill the public health concerns by considering the current research and best practices guidelines so that traditional approaches, biological interventions, and therapies could be suitably formulated based on each patients distinct needs.The patient population with which the psychiatric nurse practitioner works includes children and adults along with their families. They have to actively engage with the targeted populations and their families for emotional support and suggesting precise treatment guidelines. They have to work daily on traditional work timings; sometimes, on-call during the night. They work in either private settings or hospital ones. In addition to that, they work in emergency rooms, consultation departments of the hospitals, provide liaison services, home-based care settings, outpatient and in-patient settings as well (Nesnera & Allen, 2016)Certain certifications that a psychiatric nurse practitioner must hold are the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). It was formerly known as the Family Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner exam, in which the needed skills and entry-level clinical knowledge are scrutinized. The certification should be verified from APRN Regulation. The eligibility is only completed if accreditation and certification are passed with the examination and attested by the Board.AnalysisComparison and Contrast of the RoleIn theory, the role of the psychiatric nurse practitioner is to assess, diagnose and treat mental health disorders of the individuals, no matter what age they belong to. These nurses designed the medications and therapeutic interventions to accomplish in-patient and community-based services with positive patient outcomes. These nurse practitioners look after managing behavioral health (B.H.) in primary care in the evidence-based model of depression treatment. The psychiatric nurse practitioner can counsel initially, monitor, and coordinate for the medical and psychosocial assessment (Birch, Ling & Phoenix, 2020). Moreover, their degree is associated with the fields of pathophysiology, pharmacology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and psychotherapeutic strategies for which they are licensed to carry out the relevant practices (Delaney, 2017). The state requirement based on the citizens mental conditions and the practice laws determines how these nurse p[practitioners are to function in hospitals. The policies and regulations also notify the extent to which they can practice independently of the country. Certain states full-practice authority is granted where diagnosing, conducting tests, and the psychiatric nurse practitioners prescribe medicines independently.The ideal role of the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner is seen for the treatment of complex mental health and social impairments issues so that the affected individuals and families could functions appropriately within the society (Delaney, 2017). Recently, a serious shortage of educated and licensed mental health nurse practitioners as several U.S. counties have reported areas that require mental medical help.The evidence-based practices, such as the role of psychiatric nurses to be aware of the normal neuroanatomy, training in illness management, cognitive-behavioral therapies, family interventions, physiology, immunology of the mental disorders, social skills training, and functional restoration are applied in real clinical settings as well (Vita & Barlati, 2019). The evidence also suggests that therapeutic interventions provided by the psychiatric nurse practitioners are carried out to strengthen a therapeutic relationship with the clients that have proved to show positive health gains, fewer readmission rates for hospitalization, and improved cognitive functioning.The use and application of evidence-based practices depend on exhaustive dissemination of the information about those practices to the real-life psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners (Bekhet et al., 2018). The dissemination is possible through the publications about the strategies of the interventions and their consequences on the mental health of the patients. In contrast, the implementation could be applied to various departments such as emergency departments in hospitals, criminal justice, children counseling in the school system, etc. The information gained about the findings of the previous studies and their implementation in the actual professional field have known to reap fruitful results in terms of enhanced interpersonal relations with patients, empathetic skills of nurses, strong communication, and confidence in handling complex mental situations leading to effectiveness in screening and devising therapeutic interpositions.Whether This Role Has Leadership Functions?Concerning the collaborative care model, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners can…