About Us
NP Psych Navigator aims to empower and support NPs in talking to patients and caregivers about mental illness and providing them with helpful resources.
By joining NP Psych Navigator, you’ll join a growing community of nurse practitioners working to further their profession and mental healthcare in America. You'll also gain access to our downloadable content, including commonly used standardized psychiatric rating scales, quick guides for NPs and caregivers, and patient education materials. As NP Psych Navigator grows, you can also opt to get regular updates on new posted content.
Our Story
Our community was formed to connect NPs with tools to help them identify mental illness and care for affected patients and their families.
Though 1 in 5 adults in the United States are believed to have some form of mental illness, such as depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, close to 60% are overlooked and do not receive treatment.1,2 A shortage of mental healthcare providers may be a factor in this—on average, there is only 1 mental healthcare provider for 536 individuals.2
As one of the fastest growing groups of healthcare workers, NPs are an important part of the solution to providing adequate mental healthcare. However, many NPs do not receive sufficient education in mental healthcare.3 NP Psych Navigator was created to help bridge that gap.
NP Psych Navigator is supported and funded by AbbVie Medical Affairs. Content development and support are provided by HMP Global.
References
- Mental health Facts in America. National Alliance on Mental Illness. Accessed July 15, 2020. https://www.nami.org/nami/media/nami-media/infographics/generalmhfacts.pdf
- The State of Mental Health in America 2018. Mental Health America. 2017.
- Theophilos T, et al. Nurse Practitioner Mental Health Care in the Primary Context: A Californian Case Study. Healthcare. 2015;3:162-171.
New on NP Psych Navigator

NP Spotlights
NP Spotlight: Chris Lambert
A career as a psychiatric nurse practitioner can be replete with challenges and opportunities. The NP Psych Navigator Spotlight is your chance to learn more about nurse practitioners who are working to advance the profession and mental health in general. In this installment of this series, we profile Chris Lambert, FNP-C, DNP.

Psychiatric Scales
Antidepressant Treatment Response Questionnaire (ATRQ)
The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Antidepressant Treatment Response Questionnaire (ATRQ) is a scale used to assess treatment response or nonresponse to adequate treatment trials among patients with major depressive disorder (MDD).1 The ATRQ examines the adequacy of duration and dose of prior and current antidepressant treatment trials.2 The ATRQ also assesses the degree of improvement in depressive symptoms in the most efficacious trial or in all trials during the current episode.2 The utility of this scale is in allowing a patient-report tool to take the place of a potentially lengthy clinician interview in assessing past antidepressant treatment adequacy and efficacy.1

Psychiatric Scales
Clinically Useful Depression Outcome Scale (CUDOS)
The Clinically Useful Depression Outcome Scale (CUDOS) is a brief, quickly scored, self-report scale used to assess depressive symptoms over the past 1 week. CUDOS is reliable, valid, and sensitive to change.1 The CUDOS consists of 18 questions. The first 16 are scored from 0 to 4 for frequency of symptoms over the past week. The final 2 questions cover the impact of these symptoms on the respondent’s life and their overall quality of life in the past week.2

Psychiatric Scales
RMS (Rapid Mood Screener) Tool
The Rapid Mood Screener (RMS) is a novel, pragmatic, patient-reported tool to assess patients for bipolar I disorder.1 The RMS is a screening tool that was developed to help differentiate bipolar I disorder from major depressive disorder (MDD) in patients with depressive symptoms who have been diagnosed with MDD.1