Program Tracks Overview
| Program | Cost | Length |
|---|---|---|
| BSN to DNP: PMHNP | ~$15K–$20K annually | 3 years |
| Post-Graduate PMHNP Certificate | ~$15K–$20K total | 2 years |
With over 400 clinical affiliates, guaranteed clinical placements, and a state-of-the-art Center for Simulation Innovation, these programs feature hybrid delivery combining online and on-campus learning.
BSN to DNP: Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner
The estimated cost for the BSN to DNP: PMHNP program would be approximately $15,000-20,000 annually based on graduate tuition schedules and would take 3 years to complete full-time.
Curriculum
The DNP curriculum emphasizes core leadership courses in public policy advocacy, improving organizational effectiveness, health informatics, and financial and business management, alongside scientific inquiry based on translational science and evidence-based practice.
Classes include:
NURS 6320 Theoretical Foundations for Advanced Nursing Practice – Students explore nursing and related discipline theories, emphasizing how theory guides practice and care improvement as a foundation for advanced practice nurses to effectively choose and apply theoretical frameworks.
NURS 7302 Theoretical Foundations for Leadership in Complex Adaptive Systems – This course focuses on leadership theory, organizational development, and complex adaptive systems within healthcare, covering change management, communication, team building, conflict resolution, and decision-making while examining national quality and safety initiatives and strategies for developing leadership skills, personal resilience, and professional maturity.
NURS 6338 Advanced Pathophysiology – Students examine advanced pathophysiological processes across the lifespan, developing clinical reasoning skills to identify and distinguish alterations across multiple physiological systems.
NURS 7303 Science of Knowledge Translation and Implementation I – Students build clinical scholarship foundations by analyzing evidence-based practice models and knowledge translation approaches, critically appraising primary research, systematic reviews, and best practice guidelines to address knowledge-practice gaps.
NURS 7320 Statistical Methods and Data Analysis to Evaluate Healthcare Delivery Systems – This course develops skills in data analytics and visualization for knowledge translation, teaching students to analyze patient, practice, and outcome data using descriptive statistics and quality improvement tools to evaluate healthcare quality and advance practice outcomes.
NURS 6302 Advanced Pharmacotherapeutics – Students develop knowledge and skills for safe, evidence-based, cost-effective therapeutic use of pharmacologic agents, demonstrating clinical judgment in drug selection based on pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacogenomics principles while focusing on prescriptive practice and therapeutic monitoring across the lifespan.
NURS 6315 Informatics & Health Care Technologies – This course equips students with advanced clinical leadership skills to evaluate and optimize information systems and patient care technology, emphasizing the use of information and communication technology for knowledge generation, system improvement, documentation, stakeholder engagement, outcome monitoring, and communication while addressing ethical, legal, and regulatory standards.
NURS 6250 Advanced Health Promotion, Health Protection, and Disease Prevention – Students analyze health promotion theories and epidemiological data to design interdisciplinary strategies for reducing disease risk and improving wellness for individuals, families, and communities, with focus on population health, health equity, social determinants of health, and disaster response.
NURS 6380 Fundamentals of Epidemiology – This course teaches statistical and epidemiological methods for health-related data analysis, covering surveillance principles, statistical inference, study design, data collection techniques, and practical application of statistical methods to address real-world health issues and enhance population health outcomes.
NURS 7324 Healthcare Economics And Policy – Students learn to lead healthcare improvements and shape health policy through understanding macroeconomic principles in healthcare markets, applying theoretical and empirical economic analysis to business and public policy issues.
NURS 6210 Advanced Health Assessment and Clinical Reasoning – This course builds upon basic health assessment skills, developing theoretical and clinical foundations for advanced clinician assessment including comprehensive history, physical, psychosocial, and cultural assessment across the lifespan to gather data relevant to common health problems and formulate differential diagnoses.
NURS 6110 Advanced Health Assessment: Clinical Application – Students demonstrate comprehensive person-centered health history taking and perform both comprehensive and focused physical and mental health examinations across the lifespan, developing clinical reasoning skills to formulate differential diagnoses based on history and physical examination data analysis.
NURS 7322 Healthcare Policy Analysis and Advocacy – This course prepares nurse leaders to advance healthcare agendas through health policy research and analysis, focusing on policy processes, agenda development and implementation, collective decision-making, stakeholder identification, and engagement in policy decisions at institutional through international levels while developing politically competent care skills.
NURS 6410 Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Diagnosis and Management: Concepts & Theory 1 – Students gain theoretical foundations for psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner practice using holistic perspectives to examine human behavior etiologies, meanings, and consequences, learning psychiatric assessment methods, differential diagnosis formulation, and evidence-based treatment recommendations while exploring interprofessional collaboration and legal-ethical principles in psychiatric care.
NURS 6140 Special Population Pharmacology: Applied Psychopharmacology (PMHNP) – This course builds upon advanced pharmacology knowledge to develop practical application skills for psychopharmacologic medications in mental illness treatment across the lifespan, focusing on neurobiological and psychopharmacological principles while integrating neuroanatomy, pharmacogenomics, neurophysiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and behavioral science.
NURS 7304 Science of Knowledge Translation and Implementation II – Students learn to translate knowledge into practice using research and evidence to enhance healthcare quality and safety, applying knowledge translation models, implementation designs, evaluation models, and analytical approaches to improve practice, patient, population, and system-level outcomes while addressing ethical issues in knowledge translation.
NURS 6149 Psychotherapy for the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) – This course introduces psychotherapy theory and practice, examining theories and techniques for clinically therapeutic interventions with adults and children, exploring psychotherapy models consistent with current research and practice with primary focus on Person-Centered therapy, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and Supportive Psychotherapy.
NURS 6411 Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Diagnosis and Management: Concepts & Theory 2 – Students integrate and reflect on core PMHNP knowledge in health promotion, diagnosis, and management of patients and families with psychiatric disorders, promoting analysis and synthesis of clinical experience through faculty mentoring, patient encounter documentation, discussions, and scholarly clinical presentations.
NURS 7305 DNP Seminar – This seminar focuses on DNP project development including proposal activities such as identifying improvement opportunities, literature review for significance and background, selecting appropriate theoretical models for project guidance, identifying project goals, and synthesizing literature to guide evidence-based project proposals while working with mentoring teams.
NURS 6219 Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Diagnosis and Management: Concepts & Theory 3 – This course provides remaining theoretical foundations for PMHNP competencies in health promotion, diagnosis, and management of patients with psychiatric disorders listed in the DSM across the lifespan, emphasizing integration of psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and complementary approaches while using problem-based learning to review psychiatric disorders and develop patient-centered treatment plans.
NURS 6419 Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Diagnosis and Management Clinical Application 1 – Students integrate essential PMHNP knowledge in health promotion, diagnosis, and management of patients and families with psychiatric disorders across the lifespan and healthcare continuum, emphasizing care for acute and chronic psychiatric disorders in collaboration with interprofessional teams using evidence-based and patient-centered strategies.
NURS 6111 Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Diagnosis and Management: Clinical Seminar 1 – This course promotes integration and reflection of PMHNP core knowledge in health promotion, diagnosis, and management of patients and families with psychiatric disorders, designed to enhance analysis and synthesis of clinical experience through faculty mentoring, patient encounter documentation, discussions, and scholarly clinical presentations.
NURS 7309 DNP Project 1 – Students gain clinical specialty immersion experience to plan, design, implement, and evaluate the DNP Project while demonstrating DNP leadership and innovation roles in complex organizational systems related to knowledge translation, implementation, and evaluation with semester-specific milestones for project completion.
NURS 6130 Nurse Practitioner Conceptual Basis For Advanced Practice Nursing – This course provides conceptual foundations for advanced practice nursing, examining nurse practitioner competencies with emphasis on acquiring knowledge and skills for leadership roles in healthcare delivery, health policy, and complex healthcare systems while exploring research and quality improvement mechanisms for implementing change.
NURS 6420 Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Diagnosis and Management Clinical Application 2 – Students continue integrating essential PMHNP knowledge in health promotion, diagnosis, and management of patients and families with psychiatric disorders across the lifespan and healthcare continuum, emphasizing care for acute and chronic psychiatric disorders through interprofessional collaboration using evidence-based and patient-centered strategies.
NURS 6119 Psychiatric Mental Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Diagnosis and Management Clinical Seminar 2 – This course focuses on integration and reflection of PMHNP core knowledge in health promotion, diagnosis, and management of patients and families with psychiatric disorders across the healthcare continuum, promoting clinical experience analysis and synthesis through faculty mentoring, patient encounter documentation, discussions, and scholarly presentations.
NURS 7308 DNP Project 2 – Students continue clinical specialty immersion experience to plan, design, implement, and evaluate the DNP Project, demonstrating DNP leadership and innovation roles in complex organizational systems related to knowledge translation, implementation, and evaluation with semester-determined milestones for project completion.
NURS 6319 Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Diagnosis and Management Clinical Application – This course focuses on sustained integration of essential PMHNP knowledge in health promotion, diagnosis, and management of patients and families with psychiatric disorders across the lifespan and healthcare continuum, emphasizing care for acute and chronic psychiatric disorders through interprofessional collaboration using evidence-based and patient-centered strategies.
NURS 7307 DNP Dissemination – Students disseminate DNP project outcomes, recommendations, and lessons learned through scholarly writing and presentations while addressing practice implications with system leaders and communities of interest.
More curriculum details can be found here: https://catalog.uthscsa.edu/schoolofnursing/dnp/post-bsn/#sampleplanofstudypmhnptext
Students receive comprehensive preparation for nurse leadership and clinical practice while advancing to the highest possible degree in professional nursing practice from a post-baccalaureate level.
Post-Graduate PMHNP Certificate
The estimated cost for the Post-Graduate PMHNP Certificate would be approximately $15,000-20,000 and would take 2 years to complete.
Curriculum
The 28+ credit certificate program follows a structured progression over two years:
First Year:
- PMHNP Diagnosis & Management: Concepts & Theory 1 (4 credits)
- Special Population Pharmacology: Applied Psychopharmacology (1 credit)
- Psychotherapy for the PMHNP (1 credit)
- PMHNP Diagnosis & Management: Concepts & Theory 2 (4 credits)
- Advanced Health Promotion, Health Protection, and Disease Prevention (2 credits)
Second Year:
- PMHNP Diagnosis and Management: Concepts & Theory 3 (2 credits)
- Three clinical application courses with 660 total clinical hours
- Two clinical seminar courses
- Nurse Practitioner Conceptual Basis for Advanced Practice Nursing (1 credit)
The program utilizes hybrid delivery requiring campus attendance one to three days per week depending on enrollment status.
Prerequisites & Admissions
BSN to DNP Requirements:
- BSN from ACEN, NLNAC, or CCNE accredited school
- Texas RN licensure or compact state license
- Minimum 3.0 GPA from last 60 hours of coursework
- Minimum 1 year (2,000 hours) RN experience in clinical setting
- Three professional references
- NursingCAS application with embedded online interview
- $45 School of Nursing application fee (non-refundable)
Post-Graduate Certificate Requirements:
- MSN from CCNE, ACEN, or NLNAC accredited school
- Texas RN licensure or compact state with multi-state privileges
- Current Texas APRN certification
- Minimum 3.0 GPA in previous graduate studies
- Graduate-level prerequisite courses with “B” grade or higher:
- Advanced Health Assessment (didactic and clinical)
- Advanced Pathophysiology
- Advanced Pharmacology
- Three professional references via NursingCAS
- Interview and writing sample through Kira Talent
- $45 non-refundable application fee
Tuition
Graduate tuition varies by credit hours enrolled. Texas residents pay approximately $2,912-$7,655 per semester for full-time enrollment (1-15 credits). Non-Texas residents pay significantly higher rates ranging from $2,916-$15,681 per semester.
More tuition info available here: https://students.uthscsa.edu/financial-aid/2022-2023-tuition-and-fee-schedules/
Accreditation
UT Health San Antonio School of Nursing programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), ensuring graduates meet national standards for advanced practice nursing and board certification eligibility.
Other Nursing Programs
- Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (BSN to DNP and Certificate)
- Family Nurse Practitioner (BSN to DNP and Certificate)
- Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Primary Care (BSN to DNP and Certificate)
- Nurse Anesthesia (BSN to DNP)
- Master of Science in Nursing – Direct Entry
- Bachelor of Science in Nursing
- Post-Graduate Certificate in Nursing Education
- PhD in Nursing Science
More PMNHP Programs
- Baylor University - Waco
- Midwestern State University - Wichita Falls
- Texas A&M - Texarkana
- Texas Christian University - Fort Worth
- Texas State University - Round Rock
- Texas Tech University - Lubbock
- Texas Woman's University - Denton
- UT Health Houston - Houston
- University of Texas at Arlington - Arlington
- University of Texas at El Paso - El Paso
- UTTyler - Tyler