Psychiatric nurse during a consultation)

Overseas Aptitude Test – Psychiatric Nurse


Faculty of Nursing & Midwifery

Theory test

The theory test consists of a supervised online assessment of professional knowledge and understanding. A method of assessment known as multiple-choice questions (MCQs) is used.

  • You will be required to answer 150 questions over a three-hour period.
  • Each question will have four possible answers and you are required to give only one answer to each question.
  • A minimum pass mark of 50% must be achieved in the Theory Test.
  • You will not be permitted to leave the test until 60 minutes has passed.

The following questions may or may not appear in a test.

The statement that best describes the professional values of a registered psychiatric nurse is?

  • Caring, compassion, commitment, integrity, honesty, respect and empathy
  • Maleficence, distrust, disrespect, unprofessionalism
  • Disregard, incompetence, racism, theft
  • Recklessness, dishonesty, lack of regard for human life

The safe practice of a registered psychiatric nurse requires the practitioner to do what?

  • Assess, plan, prioritise, deliver and evaluate patient care based on their own knowledge and accord
  • Assess, plan, prioritise, deliver and evaluate patient care based upon a thorough knowledge and understanding of safe effective care choosing interventions that are based upon best evidence and desired goals of the person
  • Assess, plan, prioritise, and deliver care based upon your own personal belief system
  • Assess, plan, prioritise, deliver and evaluate patient care in a manner in which the patient believes and desires

The safe practice of a registered psychiatric nurse requires the practitioner to do what?

  • Practice and manage patient care on their own with a focus on the patient’s mental illness
  • Practice and manage patient care based on interdependency
  • Practice in a collaborative manner with the multidisciplinary team to enhance the person’s wellbeing, recovery, independence and safety
  • Practice in as an individual disregarding the other member’s of the nursing team

A recovery-oriented approach to patient care in mental health is best described as what?

  • The medical model
  • The behavioural model
  • The social model
  • An interpersonal engagement built on the principles of recovery, person-centredness, inclusion, empathy, advocacy and listening to the narrative of the service user

A registered psychiatric nurse focuses on meeting an individual’s needs through which of the following?

  • Providing an overview of the mental health interventions on offer by the public service
  • Providing an overview of the mental health interventions on offer by private healthcare
  • Providing a supportive collaborative partnership with the patient and family through members of the multidisciplinary team delivering high-quality clinical impact
  • Referring the individual to the Day Hospital Services

Which of the following is not a key principle of the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Nurses and Registered Midwives in Ireland?

  • Respect for the dignity of the person
  • Professional responsibility and accountability
  • Quality of practice
  • Jurisprudence and the law

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM (V), the axis for identifying all major psychiatric disorders is known as what?

  • Axis I
  • Axis II
  • Axis III
  • Axis IV

Pharmacokinetics is the study of the way in which of the following?

  • Drugs move through the body
  • Drugs effect the body
  • The potency and efficacy of drugs effect the body
  • Drugs cause adverse effects in the body

Pharmacodynamics is the term used to describe which of the following?

  • The duration of action of a drug on the body
  • The effects of a drug on the body
  • The way in which drugs move through the body
  • Absorption, metabolism, distribution and excretion in the body

Benzodiazepines as anxiolytics act in the central nervous system by lowering activation within which of the following?

  • Temporal lobe
  • Occipital lobe
  • The limbic system within the amygdala
  • Hypothalamus