Jobs / Healthcare / 29-2053.00
Psychiatric Technicians
Care for individuals with mental or emotional conditions or disabilities, following the instructions of physicians or other health practitioners. Monitor patients' physical and emotional well-being and report to medical staff. May participate in rehabilitation and treatment programs, help with personal hygiene, and administer oral or injectable medications.
- US jobs
- 156,960
- Median wage
- $45,130 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of psychiatric technicians?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Provide nursing, psychiatric, or personal care to patients with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities.
- Encourage patients to develop work skills and to participate in social, recreational, or other therapeutic activities that enhance interpersonal skills or develop social relationships.
- Restrain violent, potentially violent, or suicidal patients by verbal or physical means as required.
- Lead prescribed individual or group therapy sessions as part of specific therapeutic procedures.
- Monitor patients' physical and emotional well-being and report unusual behavior or physical ailments to medical staff.
- Take and record measures of patients' physical condition, using devices such as thermometers or blood pressure gauges.
- Observe and influence patients' behavior, communicating and interacting with them and teaching, counseling, or befriending them.
- Aid patients in performing tasks, such as bathing or keeping beds, clothing, or living areas clean.
- Collaborate with or assist doctors, psychologists, or rehabilitation therapists in working with patients with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities to treat, rehabilitate, and return patients to the community.
- Develop or teach strategies to promote client wellness and independence.
- Train or instruct new employees on procedures to follow with psychiatric patients.
- Escort patients to medical appointments.
Other job titles for this occupation (24)
BHT (Behavioral Health Technician) · Health Care Technician (Health Care Tech) · LPT (Licensed Psychiatric Technician) · Mental Health Associate · Mental Health Specialist · Mental Health Technician (MHT) · MHA (Mental Health Assistant) · MHW (Mental Health Worker) · Psychiatric Technician (PT) · Residential Aide (RA) · Autism Behavior Technician (Autism Behavior Tech) · Behavior Technician (Behavior Tech) · Behavioral Health Associate · Behavioral Technician (Behavioral Tech) · Counselor · Milieu Therapist · Patient Care Specialist · Psychiatric Assistant · Psychiatric Safety Tech (Psychiatric Safety Technician) · Psychology Associate · Psychology Technician (Psychology Tech) · RBT (Registered Behavior Technician) · Rehabilitation Technician (Rehab Tech) · Support Team Member (STM)