Will AI replace Psychiatric Aides?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
14/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 25% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 28% of the work
What the job involves
Assist mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed patients, working under direction of nursing and medical staff. May assist with daily living activities, lead patients in educational and recreational activities, or accompany patients to and from examinations and treatments. May restrain violent patients. Includes psychiatric orderlies.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(5)
- Provide patients with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities with routine physical, emotional, psychological, or rehabilitation care under the direction of nursing or medical staff.
- Work as part of a team that may include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, or social workers.
- Record and maintain patient information, such as vital signs, eating habits, behavior, progress notes, treatments, or discharge plans.
- Complete administrative tasks, such as entering orders into computer, answering telephone calls, or maintaining medical or facility information.
- Interview patients upon admission and record information.
Out of reach(12)
- Listen and provide emotional support and encouragement to psychiatric patients.
- Complete physical checks and monitor patients to detect unusual or harmful behavior and report observations to professional staff.
- Maintain patients' restrictions to assigned areas.
- Organize, supervise, or encourage patient participation in social, educational, or recreational activities.
- Restrain or aid patients as necessary to prevent injury.
and 7 more
Also called
Mental Health Aide (MHA) · MHA · Psychiatric Aide · Psychiatric Assistant · Psychiatric Nursing Aide · Charge Aide · Charge Attendant · Mental Health Assistant
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics