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Mental Health Nurse skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025
2 min read
Quoted Experts
Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen,
Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen
Mental Health Nurse Example Skills
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical mental health nurse skills. We ranked the top skills for mental health nurses based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 22.4% of mental health nurse resumes contained patients as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a mental health nurse needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 mental health nurse skills for your resume and career

1. Patients

Here's how mental health nurses use patients:
  • Provided psychiatric evaluation, medication management and education for patients with serious and persistent mental illness and debilitating personality disorders.
  • Interacted with patients, coordinated and successfully managed therapeutic group activities with unit staffs under supervision of clinical instructor.

2. Psychiatric Mental

Here's how mental health nurses use psychiatric mental:
  • Functioned as the only psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and psychiatric provider within an outpatient community health center.
  • Provide inpatient psychiatric mental health care services to children and adults with acute mental disorders.

3. PMHNP

Here's how mental health nurses use pmhnp:
  • Teach, precept, supervise and evaluate PMHNP students.
  • Functioned as a PMHNP in the community.

4. Medication Management

Here's how mental health nurses use medication management:
  • Provide psychiatric evaluation, consultation, brief supportive therapy, and medication management for residents of assisted living and skilled nursing facilities
  • Work includes individual and group psychotherapy, medication management and management of clients in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

5. CPR

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR is a medical procedure that involves chest compression to help a patient breathe. This artificial ventilation helps in keeping the brain function in place and regulates blood throughout the body. CPR is a lifesaving procedure that is used in emergencies.

Here's how mental health nurses use cpr:
  • Obtained necessary certifications, including child abuse clearance, CPR, and nonviolent crisis intervention training.
  • Trained in Physical Crisis Intervention and CPR

6. Crisis Intervention

Here's how mental health nurses use crisis intervention:
  • Provide acute crisis intervention, determine safety risk, and refer for inpatient hospitalization as indicated.
  • Facilitated ongoing Crisis Intervention and Critical Incident Stress Debriefing education patients, staff and community.

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7. Substance Abuse

Here's how mental health nurses use substance abuse:
  • Performed mental health evaluations to individuals with mental illnesses, alcoholism/substance abuse, Mental Retardation or developmental disabilities.
  • Provided group and individual occupation-based interventions to individuals recovering from mental illness and substance abuse.

8. Psychiatric Services

Psychiatric services refer to a medical branch dedicated to examining, preventing, and treating mental complications. It involves the issues dealing with cognitive abilities, perceptions, temperament, mood, and psychiatric assessment concentrating on the person's history and mental status.

Here's how mental health nurses use psychiatric services:
  • Collaborated with health care team members to provide comprehensive psychiatric services to adult and older adult veterans.
  • Completed 90 day assignment as a provider of psychiatric services for Georgia Regional Hospital, Savannah Georgia.

9. Rehabilitation

Here's how mental health nurses use rehabilitation:
  • Developed and implemented multiple group therapy groups in a fast paced outpatient rehabilitation setting.
  • Created a network of businesses offering placement for vocational rehabilitation clients.

10. Psychiatric Care

Here's how mental health nurses use psychiatric care:
  • Provide outpatient psychiatric care to child/adolescent and adult clients with acute and chronic psychiatric disorders within a community-based mental health center.
  • Provided and coordinated medical and psychiatric care to a pediatric and adolescent population in a residential milieu.

11. Home Health

Here's how mental health nurses use home health:
  • Collaborated with interdisciplinary team of physicians, physical therapists, and home health providers.
  • Home Health Agency is a mental health focused home health care agency addressing mental health issues as well as medical needs.

12. Veterans

Here's how mental health nurses use veterans:
  • Performed comprehensive history and physical on returning combat Veterans.
  • Assessed walk in or referred veterans for mental health concerns-Made referrals to the appropriate level of care following assessment

13. Social Work

Here's how mental health nurses use social work:
  • Worked directly with and collaborated with attending psychiatrists, social workers and psychotherapists assigned to each client in the Day Hospital.
  • Created a safety plan geared towards homeless youth, and trained social workers in the county on its proper use.

14. Health Professionals

Here's how mental health nurses use health professionals:
  • Collaborated with various members of the Common Ground team, as well as outside agencies, organizations, and health professionals.
  • Provide personal care to the patient and Provide care in coordination with families, doctors and other health professionals.

15. Resuscitation

Here's how mental health nurses use resuscitation:
  • Initiate emergency resuscitative measures according to adult resuscitation protocols.
top-skills

What skills help Mental Health Nurses find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on Mental Health Nurse resumes?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

In Mental Health Counseling, the ability to work with people from various cultural backgrounds is paramount. Training in multicultural psychology, diversity, and inclusion are all essential in our pluralistic society. I would also emphasize training in empirically supported treatments and a clear theoretical orientation grounded in scientific literature. Finally, the recent pandemic has accelerated the use of teletherapy and remote counseling--effectiveness in connecting with people through technology and making the most of an adapted model for therapy will be very important.

What hard/technical skills are most important for Mental Health Nurses?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Obviously, mastering the technology used in teletherapy and virtual counseling is essential. Further, the use of computer programs for therapy notes, documentation, and diagnosis is also important. Assessment and psychometric abilities are also important as psychotherapy research has been very clear about the important role of outcome measurement and objective assessment in psychotherapy. When prospective clinicians demonstrate the ability to work with numbers (and the software needed to make them useful), they show an openness to the objective assessment of their work.

What soft skills should all Mental Health Nurses possess?

Treniece Lewis Harris Ph.D.

Associate Professor of the Practice, Program Director, Master's Program in Mental Health Counseling, Boston College

-compassion

-active listening

-perspective-taking

-open-mindedness and respect for differences

-humility

-curiosity and critical observation

-problem recognition and analytical thinking

-creativity and flexibility

-presentation skills

What Mental Health Nurse skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Phu Phan MSW, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair, California State University - Dominguez Hills

Good oral and written communication are always important and they will get you far. So hone these skills continually. Write short and clear emails. Always own your own work. Learn how to appreciate supervision because it's a skill that is very important in the field. And then take opportunity to learn about mental health recovery strategies.

What type of skills will young Mental Health Nurses need?

Dr. Eva Moya Ph.D.Dr. Eva Moya Ph.D. LinkedIn Profile

Professor, The University of Texas

Graduates of the social work profession need to be able to work with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and mobilize communities to bring about social, economic, political, or environmental change, in addition to being involved in social policy development.

Skills in research, to study social issues, with the intention of developing social policy or micro-level approaches to practice to improve people's lives, and training in relation to multiculturalism, cultural competence, cultural humility practice is vital.

Key skills include:
-Collaboration
-Critical thinking
-Ethics in evidence based-practice
-Assessment, intervention, and evaluation
-Social work competencies to inform behaviors.
-Administration and management
-Community practice
-Policy practice
Do you want to know more?
Read more about what experts have to say about Mental Health Nurse

List of mental health nurse skills to add to your resume

Mental Health Nurse Skills

The most important skills for a mental health nurse resume and required skills for a mental health nurse to have include:

  • Patients
  • Psychiatric Mental
  • PMHNP
  • Medication Management
  • CPR
  • Crisis Intervention
  • Substance Abuse
  • Psychiatric Services
  • Rehabilitation
  • Psychiatric Care
  • Home Health
  • Veterans
  • Social Work
  • Health Professionals
  • Resuscitation
  • Psychiatric Evaluations
  • Triage
  • Mental Health Care
  • Diagnostic Tests
  • Mental Health
  • Mental Health Issues
  • Direct Patient Care
  • Excellent Interpersonal
  • Autism
  • Medication Administration
  • Community Resources
  • Health Education
  • Mental Health Problems
  • Medical Care
  • Vital Signs
  • Health Promotion
  • Patient Education
  • Therapeutic Interventions
  • Compassion
  • Psychiatric Disorders
  • Group Therapy Sessions
  • Discharge Planning
  • Mental Health Disorders
  • Dual Diagnosis
  • Telemedicine
  • Persistent Mental Illness
  • Patient Safety
  • Psychopharmacology
  • Medication Education
  • PTSD
  • Schizophrenia
  • Physician Orders
  • Therapeutic Environment
  • ADHD

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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