California Association of Psychiatric Technicians. (2002)
Psychiatric Technician Scope of Practice.
Retrieved February 1, 2003 from www.psych-health.com/scope.htm.

Review by Dwight Corning

This article applies specifically to Psychiatric Technicians in California, and is essentially a list of skills and procedures. California does define a “Psych Tech curriculum” which states that the curriculum “shall develop the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to care for patients of all ages in current health care settings.” It then goes on to list 15 broad categories of curriculum content.

The article then provides a “skills list” that was developed in the early 1990’s but was dropped as a tool to evaluate a program’s curriculum content. The article then states that it believes the skills list can still be of use as a general reference point, since most of the skills are still taught in the Psych Tech programs. It goes on to list 62 skills. The article then goes on to list 97 procedures that “may not be available in all Psych Tech programs, but are “desirable” for teaching to Psych Tech students. The interpretation is that if a Psych Tech has training in these procedures, it is within that Psych Tech’s scope of practice.”

This article seems to promote a “whatever was taught in your particular program is your scope of practice” philosophy that doesn’t match where we are moving nationally. Therefore, I find the article to be of little use to us.