Comprehensive Analysis: FNP Role in Mental Health Care

This report investigates the crucial role of Family Nurse Practitioners (FNPs) in mental health care. It explores their scope of practice, responsibilities, and limitations within the field of psychiatry, including their ability to diagnose and treat conditions like anxiety and depression. The research examines the relationship between FNPs and other mental health professionals such as doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, while also highlighting the significance of FNP's role in patient advocacy, comprehensive care, and education. The report utilizes a correlational and experimental research design, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods to explore the impact of FNPs in addressing mental health challenges, including nursing shortages and gaps in healthcare. Ethical considerations are also addressed, ensuring the protection of research participants. The findings of this research are valuable for healthcare professionals, policymakers, educators, and students seeking to understand and improve mental health services.

Running head: the role of FNP in mental health care 1
The role of FNP in mental health care
Student’s name
Institutional affiliation
Due date

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Introduction
The scope of practice is an importance aspect of every health profession as it helps to
carve out the roles and responsibilities that the health worker has. Family nursing practitioners
have a wide range of responsibilities in all fields of nursing such as geriatrics, pediatrics and
mental health among others (Creamer, & Austin, 2017). This research is however focusing on
the role of FNPs in mental health. The field of mental health has various health care
professionals such as doctors, psychologists, psychiatrics and nurses. The research is therefore
instrumental in finding out the scope and limitations of FNPs in the area of psychiatry and
mental health.
Significance and impacts of the research
The research is quite important as it will allow learners to expand their knowledge on the
roles of FNPs in mental health. The knowledge of these roles is important to policy shapers and
law making bodies as it helps them to deal with various health challenges in the country such as
increase in the number of mental health conditions, nursing shortages as well as gaps in
healthcare that can be addressed using this knowledge. The research will also help teachers and
curriculum developers alike as they impart knowledge to nursing students to allow them to
discharge the required duties in the mental health facilities. Lastly, the research is going to help
learners who wish to gain knowledge on these roles as well as build some ground for further
research in the same subject.
Review of literature
Family nursing practitioners (FNP’s) offer various services in psychiatry. According to
Alligood (2017), most of the services they offer revolves around provision of comprehensive and

The role of FNP in mental health care 3
lifelong care, disease management, educating patients on their health issues and also offering
preventative services. It is also quite clear that nurses act as a link between the patient and the
doctor and the patient’s family. The role of advocacy is therefore very important for a nurse.
FNP usually work alongside doctors and psychologists in psychiatry to manage mental health
conditions. However, on their own, FNPs can offer diagnosis and treatment to uncomplicated
mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression (Delaney, Naegle, Valentine, Antai-Otong, Groh,
& Brennaman, 2018). It is however important that FNP’s practice within their scope of practice
in order to uphold professional indemnity since failure to do this could lead to licensure. This
research focuses on the role of FNPs in mental health.
Aims and objective
1. To find out the scope of family nursing practice in psychiatry and mental health.
2. To investigate the relationship between the roles of FNP and other mental health
providers.
3. To find out the difference between the roles of FNPs and other mental health workers
such as psychiatrists.
Research design
The study will adopt a correlational and experimental research design. Interviews and
questionnaires are going to be administered to different groups of participants. Systematic
random sampling and snowball sampling techniques will be used to collect qualitative and
quantitative data. This is because both methods capture different types of data.
Research methodology

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The data collection instruments will include both primary and secondary sources. The
secondary sources will include books, journals, articles, newspapers and magazines. On the other
hand, the primary data collection instruments will include interviews and questionnaires. The
data collected will be recorded and stored for analysis.
Ethical considerations
There are several ethical considerations that will be made to assure the respondents of their
safety and security of the information they give. The code of ethics will be adopted as well as the
informed consent process so as to increase ethical awareness and behavior during this study. The
importance of high standard ethics is to assure research participants of their rights and welfare
(Foster, Maybery, Reupert, Gladstone, Grant, Ruud, & Kowalenko, 2016). The respondents will
be therefore be assured that all the information collected will be for academic purposes only and
it will not be produced anywhere else for whatever other reasons other than academic purposes.
In addition, the respondents will be informed on the objectives of the research in order to
participate more actively.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this research will be able to answer the research questions and aims. It is
also worth noting that various diseases have both physical and psychological defects. It is
therefore necessary that FNP nurses have enough knowledge of mental health issues as well as
other diseases (Salmond, & Echevarria, 2017).

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References
Alligood, M. R. (2017). Nursing Theorists and Their Work-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Creamer, A. M., & Austin, W. (2017). Canadian Nurse Practitioner Core Competencies
Identified: An Opportunity to Build Mental Health and Illness Skills and
Knowledge. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 13(5), e231-e236.
Delaney, K. R., Naegle, M. A., Valentine, N. M., Antai-Otong, D., Groh, C. J., & Brennaman, L.
(2018). The effective use of psychiatric mental health nurses in integrated care: Policy
implications for increasing quality and access to care. The journal of behavioral health
services & research, 45(2), 300-309.
Foster, K., Maybery, D., Reupert, A., Gladstone, B., Grant, A., Ruud, T., ... & Kowalenko, N.
(2016). Family-focused practice in mental health care: An integrative review. Child &
Youth Services, 37(2), 129-155.
Salmond, S. W., & Echevarria, M. (2017). Healthcare transformation and changing roles for
nursing. Orthopedic nursing, 36(1), 12.