Jobs / Healthcare / 29-1141.02
Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
Assess, diagnose, and treat individuals and families with mental health or substance use disorders or the potential for such disorders. Apply therapeutic activities, including the prescription of medication, per state regulations, and the administration of psychotherapy.
- US jobs
- 3,379,720 (SOC 29-1141 group, "Registered Nurses")
- Median wage
- $97,550 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of advanced practice psychiatric nurses?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Assess patients' mental and physical status, based on the presenting symptoms and complaints.
- Diagnose psychiatric disorders and mental health conditions.
- Document patients' medical and psychological histories, physical assessment results, diagnoses, treatment plans, prescriptions, or outcomes.
- Educate patients and family members about mental health and medical conditions, preventive health measures, medications, or treatment plans.
- Write prescriptions for psychotropic medications as allowed by state regulations and collaborative practice agreements.
- Monitor patients' medication usage and results.
- Evaluate patients' behavior to formulate diagnoses or assess treatments.
- Distinguish between physiologically- and psychologically-based disorders, and diagnose appropriately.
- Develop and implement treatment plans.
- Conduct individual, group, or family psychotherapy for those with chronic or acute mental disorders.
- Participate in activities aimed at professional growth and development, including conferences or continuing education activities.
- Collaborate with interdisciplinary team members, including psychiatrists, psychologists, or nursing staff, to develop, implement, or evaluate treatment plans.
Other job titles for this occupation (24)
Adult Psychiatric Mental Health APRN (Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Advanced Practice Registered Nurse) · Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse · APN (Advanced Practice Nurse) · Board Certified Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist (BC PMH-CNS) · PMHNP (Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner) · Psychiatric APN (Psychiatric Advanced Practice Nurse) · Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist (Psychiatric CNS) · Psychiatric NP (Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner) · Psychiatric Provider · Psychiatry APRN (Psychiatry Advanced Practice Registered Nurse) · Adult PMHNP (Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner) · Advanced Practice Provider (APP) · Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (Family Psychiatric Mental Health NP) · Mental Health Nurse · Mental Health Physician · Mental Health Provider · PMH-APRN (Psychiatric Mental Health Advanced Practice Registered Nurse) · Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse (PMH Nurse) · Psychiatric Nurse · Psychiatric Physician · Psychiatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner · Psychiatric RN (Psychiatric Registered Nurse) · Psychiatric-Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist (PMH-CNS) · Travel Psychiatric RN (Travel Psychiatric Registered Nurse)