Training comparison among three professions prescribing psychoactive medications: psychiatric nurse practitioners, physicians, and pharmacologically trained psychologists.

Academic training leading to prescriptive authority is compared among psychiatric nurse practitioners, physicians, and pharmacologically trained psychologists. Statistics are presented on the relative emphasis that programs serving each discipline place on the preparation of their respective students in academic and clinical content areas that are relevant to the prescribing of psychoactive medication for the mental health population. An analysis of these statistics substantiates the assertion that pharmacologically trained psychologists are well prepared academically to incorporate prescriptive authority within their competencies. Indeed, the statistics point to multiple content areas in which the other professions are relatively deficient in comparison to pharmacologically trained psychologists' preparation.