Psychiatric aides are below average when it comes to happiness.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, psychiatric aides rate their career happiness 2.9 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 24% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy psychiatric aides are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic medical sonographer | 3.0 | $78k |
| Optometrist | 3.0 | $124k |
| Occupational therapist | 2.9 | $86k |
| Respiratory therapist | 2.9 | $62k |
| Ophthalmic medical technician | 2.9 | $37k |
| Psychiatric aide | 2.9 | $29k |
| Social worker | 2.9 | $61k |
| Audiologist | 2.9 | $79k |
| Orthotist | 2.9 | $75k |
| Personal care aide | 2.8 | $26k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are psychiatric aides happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do psychiatric aides find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as psychiatric aides?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are psychiatric aide’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are psychiatric aides making the best use of their abilities?
Are psychiatric aides happy with their salary?
Psychiatric aides rated their satisfaction with their salaries 2.5/5. Most psychiatric aides do not feel that their salaries adequately reflect their work, and are actively unhappy with their income.
We asked psychiatric aides how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
2.5 out of 5 stars
264 psychiatric aides
7% of psychiatric aides rated their compensation 5 stars
16% of psychiatric aides rated their compensation 4 stars
26% of psychiatric aides rated their compensation 3 stars
25% of psychiatric aides rated their compensation 2 stars
27% of psychiatric aides rated their compensation 1 stars
Do psychiatric aides find their jobs meaningful?
On average, psychiatric aides rate the meaningfulness of their work a 3.4/5. Unlike many careers, psychiatric aides have little difficulty finding meaning in their work, and it likely constitutes one of the main reasons people become psychiatric aides.
We asked psychiatric aides how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
3.4 out of 5 stars
265 psychiatric aides
19% of psychiatric aides rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
35% of psychiatric aides rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
23% of psychiatric aides rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
9% of psychiatric aides rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
13% of psychiatric aides rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as psychiatric aides?
Psychiatric aides rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.6/5. The majority of psychiatric aides find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked psychiatric aides how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.6 out of 5 stars
264 psychiatric aides
28% of psychiatric aides rated their career fit 5 stars
33% of psychiatric aides rated their career fit 4 stars
19% of psychiatric aides rated their career fit 3 stars
10% of psychiatric aides rated their career fit 2 stars
10% of psychiatric aides rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a psychiatric aide’s work environment?
As a whole, psychiatric aides rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.2/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked psychiatric aides how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.2 out of 5 stars
264 psychiatric aides
17% of psychiatric aides rated their work environment 5 stars
30% of psychiatric aides rated their work environment 4 stars
22% of psychiatric aides rated their work environment 3 stars
15% of psychiatric aides rated their work environment 2 stars
16% of psychiatric aides rated their work environment 1 stars
Are psychiatric aides making the best use of their abilities?
Former psychiatric aides on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 2.8/5. Psychiatric aides tend to feel that they don’t manage to use their abilities to their fullest, when compared to other careers.
We asked psychiatric aides how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
2.8 out of 5 stars
267 psychiatric aides
13% of psychiatric aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
19% of psychiatric aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
26% of psychiatric aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
22% of psychiatric aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
19% of psychiatric aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars