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OaSIS 2025 Version 1.0
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31301.04 – Registered psychiatric nurses

Registered psychiatric nurses provide direct nursing care and supportive counselling and life skills programming to patients.

Overview

Example job titles

  • Psychiatric and mental health nurse
  • Psychiatric nurse
  • Registered psychiatric nurse (R.P.N.)

Core competencies

  • Oral Communication: Active Listening to build trust, clarify patient needs, improve communication, identify concerns, empower patients and support therapeutic interventions
  • Social Perceptiveness to understand patients' emotions, behaviours and social cues
  • Problem Identification and Inductive Reasoning to perform tests and administer treatments and evaluate patients' integration in the community
  • Verbal Ability and Speech Clarity to observe, report and discuss patients' conditions with physicians and other members of a health care team
  • Stress Tolerance to maintain composure amid emotionally charged scenarios, ensuring effective delivery of care and support to patients grappling with mental health issues
  • Knowledge in Mental Health to understand various mental illnesses, symptoms, treatments and therapeutic techniques

Main duties

This group performs some or all of the following duties:

  • Provide nursing care, supportive counselling and life skills programming to patients in psychiatric hospitals, mental health clinics, long-term care facilities and community-based settings.

Additional information

  • Nurses trained exclusively as registered psychiatric nurses (RPN) are regulated in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. In all other provinces and territories, registered nurses (RN) may work as psychiatric nurses without separate registration.
  • Registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses may progress to supervisory and managerial positions with experience.

Similar occupations classified elsewhere

Exclusions:

NOC hierarchy breakdown

NOC version

NOC 2021 Version 1.0

Broad occupational category

3 – Health occupations

TEER

1 – Occupations usually require a university degree

Major group

31 – Professional occupations in health

Sub-major group

313 – Nursing and allied health professionals

Minor group

3130 – Nursing and allied health professionals

Unit group

31301 – Registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses

Occupational profile

31301.04 – Registered psychiatric nurses

O*NET in-it

This page includes information from the O*NET 27.2 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. Employment and Social Development Canada has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.