In Finland one in five adults are diagnosed with a mental disorder and over 620 000 people are being taking care of on a somatic ward in specialized healthcare. Taking these two facts into consideration there are almost 124 000 people annually who need both somatic and psychiatric attention mutually. Current study shows that somatic nurses are lacking skills, education and experience on recognizing and treating people who suffer from a mental disorder of some kind.

The objective of the thesis was to describe the psychiatric skills that one needs when taking care of a person with a somatic illness and what is the purpose of those skills being used. The aim was to conduct a literature review that can be used to enhance the holistic care of a patient.

The thesis was conducted as a literature review and analyzed in an inductive manner. The research questions were: what psychiatric skills should taking care of a patient with a somatic illness include and what is the purpose of psychiatric skills in taking care of a patient with a somatic illness.

The results showed that psychiatric skills needed are education on psychiatry, recognizing mental disorders and care relationship centered work. The psychiatric skills had mainly effected on better treatment results, patient satisfaction and the implementation of holistic care.

In the future, it will be needed to conduct more research on the subject, and specially on which psychiatric skills that somatic nurses should master.