Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as an advanced practice psychiatric nurse and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse is responsible for providing advanced nursing care for patients with psychiatric disorders under the direction of the psychiatrist. This position is keen to monitor the patient's medication usage and results as well as their progress and response to the treatment.
More of their responsibilities include, diagnosing psychiatric disorders and mental health conditions, recording patients medical histories, documenting the patient's medical and psychological histories, physical assessment results, diagnoses, care plans, prescriptions or outcomes, analyzing patient data to determine patient needs or treatment goals, evaluating patient's behavior to formulate diagnoses or assess treatments, diagnose medical conditions, analyze patient data to determine patient needs or treatment goals,
Core Skills Required to be an Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
An advanced practice psychiatric nurse should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Verbal Communication:
Verbal Communication is the use of tones and language to relay a message; it aids as a vehicle for expressing ideas, concepts and it, is critical to the daily running of the business.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse portrays his/her image and that of the company by the way he/she communicates; strong verbal communication skills are vital for business development and forging lasting relationships with customers, suppliers, and colleagues.
Teamwork Skills:
Teamwork is the process of collaboratively working with a group of people with an aim to achieve a set goal within a business ensuring that the staff and management cooperate using their skills and provide constructive feedback.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse needs to exercise effectiveness and understanding in creating teamwork using the right techniques in an environment of trust and cooperation with the aim of increasing productivity, higher morale, and a fulfilled workforce.
Multi-Tasking:
Multi-Tasking allows one to juggle and perform more than one task at a time without losing track of what you are working on or dropping the ball.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse must learn the trick of multitasking and help the staff balance the competing demands of their time and energy that they are expected to handle multiple priorities every day without compromising on the effectiveness of the work done.
Motivating others:
Motivating is using persuasion, incentives and mental or physical stimulants to influence the way people think or behave individually or in groups.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse ought to learn how to tap into the employee's enthusiasm as well as motivate the staff not just with money but with a motivation that comes through the daily relationship with each employee and creating an environment that fosters employee engagement and motivation.
Giving Feedback:
Giving Feedback is one of the most powerful tools to develop employees and improve performance through honest feedback of the work done best and areas that need improvement.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse should be skilled in giving out both praise and criticism in a wise way to occasionally show workers where they need to improve and providing them with an observer's insight into the progress of their performance.
Appraisal and Evaluation Skills:
Appraisal and Evaluation Skills are services that allow employers to assess their employees? contributions to the organization for the period they have been working with them.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse must creatively develop a robust evaluation process that includes the standard evaluation form, approved performance measures, guidelines for presenting feedback and disciplinary procedures to promote staff recognition and rewarding following a fair assessment and appraisal process.
Dedication to Work:
Dedication to Work is a devotion or setting aside the scheduled time that you are required to work each day consistently without fail as well as being on time and giving 100% of your efforts to doing quality work.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse ought to be dependable and set an example for the rest of the workforce by showing up for work on time every day consistently and producing quality work while applying company policies and business strategies.
Physical Abilities:
Physical Abilities is the ability of one's strengths and limitations that are also known as the individual resources to perform well at the tasks given.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse must understand that his employees are very different types of people who vary in what they can or cannot do and treat each one with respect while supporting them to become the best in what they do.
Personal Relationships:
Personal Relationships is the relationship between individuals who have or have had a continuing relationship of any nature either professional or informal.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse reserves the right to take prompt action if an actual or potential conflict of interest arises concerning individuals who engage in a personal relationship that may affect terms and conditions of employment and he should not also date a subordinate.
Time Management:
Time Management is the capacity for an individual to assign specific time slots to activities as per their importance and urgency to make the best possible use of time.
An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse must schedule each task within a stipulated period for each employee and ensure all the tasks are completed promptly thus actually teaching the staff the value of time and how to utilize it for the interest of the business and their growth.
Hard Skills Required to be an Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
An advanced practice psychiatric nurse should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.