Purpose: Purpose of this research was to identify nursing activities and the time required in the psychiatric ward to provide basic knowledge for development of cost of psychiatric nursing. Methods: In this research 'a list of psychiatric nursing activities' was used to identify the issues. A list of psychiatric nursing activities was developed by a professional psychiatric nursing panel, and 138 nursing activities in 15 domains were identified. Results: The result of this research showed that the average number of work hours per duty was 515.1 minutes and the average number of minutes per patient per nurse while on duty was 35.7 minutes. Also the results showed that the nurses used the majority of their time in 'Nursing care and information management' (528.0 minutes/day, 33.6%), followed by 'communication and coordination' (209.2 minutes, 13.3%), 'safety care' (185.3 minutes, 11.8%), and 'medication' (120.9 minutes, 13.3%). Conclusion: The result of this research indicate that the number of nursing staff is insufficient for the performance of necessary therapeutic activities. Nursing practices such as counseling, activity therapy, and psychiatric treatment and specific therapy need to be developed and nursing care fees need to be included in psychiatric nursing fields.