Mental Health - Nursing or OT?

[midlifecareercrisis]

Are there any nurses or OTs here working in mental health? I can't decide which route to go down and need guidance.

I'm a single parent so OT appeals more in that sense due to the family friendlier hours? Are nurses more employable than OTs? Is there much of a difference in pay?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hey OP, I'm not a nurse or an OT but I work with lots of them. I know that OTs are desperately wanted in mental health so you would find something.

Yep! I’m an RMN. Would do RMN again. Career options are more varied, there’s more jobs available (eg most teams either community or inpatient world only have 1/2 OTs vs many more nurses).

Definitely OT, I was a !mental health nurse for years, OT,s have better hours, more flexibility and seem to progress to band six far more quickly

i am neither but work in a related field. The benefits of OT are job satisfaction and better hours. However, if you want good career progression there are far more opportunities for nurses either to progress (band 7 and beyond), or to more sideways.

Do the roles overlap? I'm trying to work out what an OT does in a mental health setting. I'm interested in perinatal mental health in particular.

Can I ask what are the hardest parts of being a RMN?

Well I mainly worked in elderly and acute mental health they would do home assessments for people being disharged ,they so!writes ran groups on the wards when there was a day hospital they do cooking assessments etc.

Sometimes*

I’m RMN
Hardest parts are :
Shift work
Staff shortages,
Pressure to discharge patients ASAP
Risk management, violence and aggression

OT’s appear to have a better deal to me 😊

See I don't know how I'd cope with the violence and aggression but I guess OTs have to deal with that too to some extent?

I finish my OT degree in May yay! I always wanted to work in mental health and really struggled between mental health nursing and OT.

I think OT is fab but in retrospect I wish I had trained as an RMN. There are very few jobs in my area (south west). Far more employment opportunities in nursing. Most 3rd year RMN students I know have a job, only a handful of my OT course mates do.

I know that the government has thrown millions in to perinatal mental health with new teams popping up all over the place. As said up thread, each team may have an OT but will have lots more RNN’s.

Good luck whatever choice you make.

It depends where you work, there is always a potential for violence and agression, I would say OT,s are less at risk on the wards because they come into wards to run a group ,work with a patient etc, whereas nurses are on the wards for the whole shift ,on the whole there was more violence in elderly wards than the acute wards but although incidences could be few and far between when they happened it could be extreme in acute mental health.

OT’s do not get involved with restraint in my experience.

If you want to work in a perinatal mental health team, there will be more job opportunities for nurses than OTs- there is usually only one OT (often part time hours) in each team compared to a few full time nurses. Also be aware that the OT role in perinatal mental health is very new and in some teams the job role has not been clearly established, which has caused dissatisfaction.

The RMNs I trained with says they wuss they’d done OT instead as the RMN role didn’t really have the therapeutic elements they’d hoped for. Better hours with OT too!

I'm an OT in mental health and love it. You are dually trained so do a 50/50 split of mental and physical health during training, which although I've always worked in mental health, I like to know there are other options as working in mental health is hard sometimes, less investment etc. I also like the holistic approach being dually trained brings. But be prepared during training for the physical health placements, it's like a completely different discipline. OT is all about enabling someone to function within the activities that make up their life so in mental health it is about assessing the impact of mental health symptoms on someone's ability to participate in the things they need to be able to do, which is as individual as the person you're working with. I've worked in forensic rehab, inpatient wards and now community and would say that OTs perhaps face less violence than nurses on the inpatient wards but in community there's no real difference. I have so much respect for the nurses I've worked with and my role as an OT was definitely easier, mainly as I got to work on and off the ward and didn't do shifts. That's specific to the wards though and there's a lot of nurse roles in various other teams. Before I started my training I work shadowed before I made my mind up as I was torn between OT, nursing and social work, that really helped understand what I felt I would be better suited to. Good luck making your decision

I'm an rmn. Would have loved to have done OT but was put off with the difficulty finding jobs and not as much progression. Also the placement areas at uni seem massive
We have student OTs come to our wards that are travelling from 2 hours away which wouldn't be feasible for me. Granted that might just be where I am (yorkshire).

I love being a nurse though and am lucky that I work in forensic rehab where mdt working is really strong and we often overlap with the OTs on certain aspects of our work

Good luck with whatever you decide. Both are very rewarding careers.

I'm an RMN, I vote for OT rather than nursing if I had my chance again.

OT's I worked with have always been protected from violence and in many ways it seems a much more positive role. Lots of positive engagement, less hassle from management.

In working age, it as very much group activities and therapy groups. In older persons mental health, it seems very varied, lots of assessments and identifying needs and barriers to discharge as well as groups. Falls assessments etc as well.

Hours are good too.

I do love my job but I wish I had become an OT all the time.

I'm not either but also work with them to some extent in my current role. At least in the Trust I work with, OT jobs are few and far between - there's usually 1 between two wards in the hospital in contrast to obviously several nurses on each ward. They also seem to have lots of staff turnover; we have quarterly meetings with the OT department and feels like most times they report someone has left/they are recruiting for a replacement. Not sure why that is but maybe something to look into.

I'm an RMN.

OT's tend to have less pressure and better hours, and less pressure to deal with violence and aggression.

However nurses are more employable to be honest, and much easier to job change or pick up extra work if you need it, and there's a huge variety of teams which you can work in. And it is possible to find community mental health nursing jobs which are more 'office' hour jobs if that's what you are after (but you usually need post-qualification experience for these).

Base salary is very similar as both start as band 5's when qualified, and tend to progress up to band 6 / 7's through their career. However in reality (because an RMN I work unsociable hours / weekends / bank holidays which there is a pay supplement for) I probably take home a couple of thousand more a year than an OT on the same paypoint.

Thank you all for the advice, it's much appreciated. I think shift work would be an issue for me as a single parent, as I have very little support. Night shifts would be virtually impossible I'm afraid.

I think OT puts me off in some ways because I still associate it with elderly people and ordering equipment for their homes but I know that is a very annoying stereotype to have. Because the role is so varied, I struggle to work out how OTs help in a mental health setting whereas it seems more clear cut with RMNs - not meaning to offend with my lack of understanding.

All I know is that I want to work in mental health in some capacity. I wish I was more drawn to one over the other.

Of you want to work in mental health maybe try and get some "bank work" as a HCA and try and work in different areas ,at the trust I worked for you could be sent anywhere, and then you might see in practice how the different disciplines work?

Social work is an option? A good proportion of the people on my social work degree course want to go into adult mental health.

Social work doesn't really appeal to me. I have considered it though.

I'm slightly gutted because I would love to work in perinatal mental health but as a single parent, I can't see how I could manage shift work I imagine OT jobs in that field are like gold dust.

Maybe you need to look at the long game? I am also a lone parent and couldv’t manage the shifts on the RMN course. So how about trying to get some bank work with your local mental health trust. There are early shifts and late shifts which I know are tricky childcare wise, but also mid shifts (9-5) to cover escorted leave etc. (at least there are where I work).

Then with some experience you could look to get a band 3 or 4 post in a community mental health team. I know my trust is offering free foundation degrees to health care assistants/support workers that means it is only two years at uni to funded by them to qualify as a RMN.

Look at options in your local trust to train on the job. I would had deffo gone for this had I not got on my course before the bursary stopped.

Good luck!