Nurses care for older adults in health and illness across the full range of health care settings. Especially in late life, physical illness often precipitates and/or is accompanied by psychiatric symptoms. Therefore it is important that nursing education programs provide knowledge and skills that prepare nurses to care for older adults with mental health concerns and psychiatric/substance misuse disorders.

The Geropsychiatric Nursing Collaborative has developed the following resources to draw attention to the special needs of older adults.

• Definition of Geropsychiatric Nursing. This definition serves to guide future discussions about preparing nurses to care for older adults with mental health concerns.
• Key Concepts. These key concepts are foundational to the geropsychiatric nursing competency enhancements.
• Geropsychiatric Nursing Competency Enhancements. These enhancements are not intended to ‘stand-alone,’ but rather to enhance existing or to-be-developed competencies by relevant professional nursing organizations. The competency enhancements are organized in four topic areas: entry level and advanced practice level for Gerontological, Psychiatric-Mental Health and Other Specialties Caring for Older Adults, i.e.  Adult, Family, Acute Care, and Women’s Health. The advanced level category is further categorized by role, either Nurse Practitioner or Clinical Nurse Specialist.