---
title: "Psychiatric Aide"
description: "Assist mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed patients, working under direction of nursing and medical staff. May assist with daily living…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-aide"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Psychiatric Aide

**Category:** Healthcare Support · **SOC code:** 31-1133 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 31-1133.00

Assist mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed patients, working under direction of nursing and medical staff. May assist with daily living activities, lead patients in educational and recreational activities, or accompany patients to and from examinations and treatments. May restrain violent patients. Includes psychiatric orderlies.

Also advertised as: Developmental Aide; Mental Health Aide (MHA); Mental Health Worker (MHW); Psychiatric Aide; Psychiatric Assistant; Psychiatric Nursing Aide; Qualified Medication Aide (QMA); Resident Care Technician (Resident Care Tech).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $44,910 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $21.59/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $32,090 to $60,440, with the middle half between $37,750 and $49,950
- **Total US employment:** 35,520
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +1.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 4,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 51/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 35,520 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $32,090 |
| 25th | $37,750 |
| 50th (median) | $44,910 |
| 75th | $49,950 |
| 90th | $60,440 |
| Mean (average) | $45,690 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MN | $55,040 | $55,810 | 620 |
| WA | $52,570 | $49,125 | 330 |
| HI | $52,310 | $47,576 | 30 |
| MD | $51,440 | $49,010 | 250 |
| NV | $51,400 | $51,411 | 220 |
| RI | $51,100 | $49,961 | 130 |
| NY | $50,220 | $46,534 | 5,120 |
| AK | $49,300 | $48,164 | 190 |
| IL | $48,670 | $48,690 | 120 |
| OR | $48,300 | $46,729 | 1,550 |
| VT | $47,860 | $48,858 | 330 |
| CA | $47,500 | $42,901 | 3,760 |
| ME | $46,720 | $48,140 | 110 |
| MT | $46,340 | $48,962 | 330 |
| CO | $46,130 | $44,764 | 300 |

24 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 39 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-aide/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/psychiatric-aide.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 36,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 37,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 700 jobs, or +1.9%. Slower than average: 1.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 4,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Some College Courses | 45.7% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 24.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 16.5% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 9.6% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 4.1% |

## What the work involves

- Listen and provide emotional support and encouragement to psychiatric patients.
- Participate in recreational activities with patients, including card games, sports, or television viewing.
- Complete physical checks and monitor patients to detect unusual or harmful behavior and report observations to professional staff.
- Organize, supervise, or encourage patient participation in social, educational, or recreational activities.
- Maintain patients' restrictions to assigned areas.
- Clean and disinfect rooms and furnishings to maintain a safe and orderly environment.
- Provide patients with assistance in bathing, dressing, or grooming, demonstrating these skills as necessary.
- Work as part of a team that may include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, or social workers.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Psychology — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Therapy and Counseling — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sociology and Anthropology — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Social (S), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.81 |
| I — Investigative | 4.04 |
| C — Conventional | 3.74 |
| R — Realistic | 3.44 |
| A — Artistic | 1.83 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.68 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 70.0 |
| ESFJ | 66.1 |
| ISFP | 62.0 |
| ESFP | 60.2 |
| ENFJ | 56.7 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Psychiatric Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-technician) — median $45,130
- [Physical Therapist Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-aide) — median $35,240
- [Occupational Therapy Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-therapy-aide) — median $39,160
- [Home Health Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/home-health-aide) — median $35,800
- [Occupational Therapy Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-therapy-assistant) — median $72,300
- [Physical Therapist Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-assistant) — median $68,380
- [Nursing Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-assistant) — median $42,260
- [Registered Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/registered-nurse) — median $97,550
- [Licensed Practical Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/licensed-practical-nurse) — median $64,400
- [Medical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-assistant) — median $45,690

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/psychiatric-aide