How To Become An Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse: What It Is and Career Path

What is an advanced practice psychiatric nurse and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an advanced practice psychiatric nurse. For example, did you know that they make an average of $37.04 an hour? That's $77,040 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 6% and produce 195,400 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreAdvanced Practice Psychiatric NurseUS Average

Salary

6.0

Avg. Salary $77,040

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

10.0

Growth rate 6%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.42%

Asian 9.63%

Black or African American 7.51%

Hispanic or Latino 6.98%

Unknown 4.11%

White 71.36%

Gender

female 84.38%

male 15.63%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

10.0

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

10.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.9

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an advanced practice psychiatric nurse

Explore advanced practice psychiatric nurse education requirements

Most common advanced practice psychiatric nurse degrees

Master's

46.9 %

Bachelor's

34.4 %

Associate

15.6 %

Start to develop specific advanced practice psychiatric nurse skills

Skills	Percentages
Diagnosis	49.13%
Treatment Plan	21.40%
Mental Health Care	14.47%
Medication Management	11.76%
Crisis Management	2.70%

Complete relevant advanced practice psychiatric nurse training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New advanced practice psychiatric nurses learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an advanced practice psychiatric nurse based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real advanced practice psychiatric nurse resumes.

Research advanced practice psychiatric nurse duties and responsibilities

Manage staff of medical personnel providing care for telemetry, geriatric and general medicine patients.
Formulate diagnosis and make recommendations for treatment and disposition to clinical staff.
Oversee and provide leadership for professional staff on a medical surgical orthopedic unit with oversight of scheduling and performance management.
Maintain JCAHO standards including policy development, infection prevention, quality management, and risk management.

Get advanced practice psychiatric nurse experience

Generally, it takes 1-2 years to become an advanced practice psychiatric nurse. The most common roles before becoming an advanced practice psychiatric nurse include clinical nurse specialist, staff nurse team lead and psychiatric nurse practitioner.

Prepare your advanced practice psychiatric nurse resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your advanced practice psychiatric nurse resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an advanced practice psychiatric nurse resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable advanced practice psychiatric nurse resume templates

Build a professional advanced practice psychiatric nurse resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your advanced practice psychiatric nurse resume.