Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, DNP
The Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) program prepares registered nurses with a baccalaureate or master's degree as Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners in the PMHNP role.
What Can I Do With an PMHNP Degree?
As a PMHNP, you will be trained to provide a wide range of mental health services for children, adolescents, adults, and families in a variety of settings including primary care, hospital or community health centers, outpatient mental health clinics, or long-term care facilities. PMHNPs provide mental health promotion services, diagnose psychiatric conditions, conduct therapy, and prescribe medications for patients who have psychiatric disorders. They may also serve as consultants or as educators for families and staff.
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- The learner will integrate, translate, and apply established and evolving disciplinary nursing knowledge and ways of knowing, as well as knowledge from other disciplines, including a foundation in liberal arts and natural and social sciences to form the basis for clinical judgment and innovation in nursing practice and the practice of professional nursing.
- The learner will practice holistic, individualized, just, respectful, compassionate, coordinated, evidence-based, and developmentally appropriate person-centered care focused on the individual within multiple complicated contexts, including family and/or important others.
- The learner will participate in collaborative activities with both traditional and non-traditional partnerships from affected communities, public health, industry, academia, health care, local government entities, and others for the improvement of equitable population health.
- The learner will generate, synthesize, translate, apply, and disseminate nursing knowledge to improve health and transform health care.
- The learner will employ established and emerging principles of safety and improvement science as core values of nursing practice and enhance quality and minimize risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance.
- The learner will demonstrate Intentional collaboration across professions and with care team members, patients, families, communities, and other stakeholders to optimize care, enhance the healthcare experience, and strengthen outcomes.
- The learner will effectively and proactively coordinate resources to provide safe, quality, equitable care to diverse populations, leading within complex systems of health care.
- The learner will demonstrate the use of information and communication technologies and informatics processes to provide care, gather data, form information to drive decision making, and support professionals as they expand knowledge and wisdom for practice and improve the delivery of safe, high-quality, and efficient healthcare services.
- The learner will form and cultivate a sustainable professional nursing identity, accountability, perspective, collaborative disposition, and comportment that reflects nursing’s characteristics and values.
- The learner will participate in activities and self-reflection that foster personal health, resilience, and well-being, lifelong learning, and support the acquisition of nursing expertise and assertion of leadership.
- The learner will demonstrate compassionate care for the whole person by integrating Jesuit values of cura personalis, persons for other, contemplatives in action, fostering a commitment to lifelong learning, social justice, solidarity with vulnerable populations, and ethical decision-making in their practice.
Your Path to Healing Minds Starts Here
Are you a registered nurse with a BSN, MSN, or DNP degree? Explore PMHNP options that meet you where you are.
Lead the Future of Mental Health
For BSN and MSN Holders
Earn your Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) in just over three years.
Prepare to be a Public Health Leader
For BSN Holders
Fast-track your career with a dual DNP/MPH, earning both degrees in five years instead of six.
Get Certified Without a Degree
For MSN and DNP Holders
Earn a certificate that prepares you to practice as a PMHNP without the commitment of a full degree — in as little as one year.
Finance Your Education
The School of Nursing and Health Professions offers a number of scholarships and funding options.
Hybrid Courses
Engage in a curriculum thoughtfully balanced between online and classroom learning. Courses are offered year round during fall, spring, and summer semesters. Practicum placements, when needed, are facilitated by the program.
Teaching Weekend Schedule
Fridays and Saturdays during the hours of 8:00 am to 9:00 pm. Lunch hour is observed from 12:00 - 1:00 pm.
NP Courses
N706 Advanced Pathophysiology and N707 Applied Pharmacology will meet on Fridays synchronously online during teaching weekends.
N7220 Advanced Physical Assessment Practica will meet in person on teaching weekends.
PMHNP clinical Courses
Meet synchronously online on teaching weekends.
Sara Hamilton ’24
I’m focusing on addressing substance use disorders among college students, specifically community college students. Drawing from my experience growing up, I’m inspired and fueled to make a difference in young people’s lives."
Sara Hamilton ’24
SONHP Welcomes Kimberly Perris
We are fortunate: Dr. Perris, a Double Don, is back at USF SONHP!
Student Projects & Publications
All Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students must implement an evidence-based quality improvement project designed to improve practice in their area of concentration. The project is guided by their faculty DNP Committee Chairperson and Committee and demonstrates their ability to apply the principles of evidence-based practice, through problem identification, project development and proposal, and the implementation and evaluation of practice, quality/process or systems improvements.
USF Nursing Accreditation
The baccalaureate, master’s, and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs and the post-graduate APRN certificate programs at the University of San Francisco School of Nursing and Health Professions are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. All SONHP nursing programs are also approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing.
State Authorization
Please check our State Authorization Status List for the states and territories from which we can enroll students in specific online degree programs.
Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP-BSN, PMHNP-MSN, PMHNP Cert)
The USF Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner DNP program is intended to lead to national Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Board Certification by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. The USF Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner DNP program is intended to lead to a state-issued Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) license or state-issued Nurse Practitioner (NP) license or national population specific NP certification. If you have questions about pursuing a state-issued APRN or NP license upon completion of the program, please reach out to your program administrator.
Take the Next Step
Admissions & Aid
Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, DNP
San Francisco, CA 94117
Monday–Friday
8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.