Introduction: The essential problems in providing quality and safety services to patients, rapid changes in health care settings as well as information technology require educational revision. Competency-based curriculum focuses on set of skills that students should achieve. This study reviewed characteristics of competency-based curriculum in psychiatric nursing. Methods: A literature review about a competency-based curriculum in psychiatric mental health nursing was carried out by searching databases including Iran Medex, Iran Doc, and Pub Med with key words such as competency-based education, competency-based curriculum, and competency-based curriculum in psychiatric mental health nursing. No time limitation was considered. Results: Results revealed that over 30 literatures have been done about nursing curriculum, but just several studies were done regarding competency-based curriculum and just a few about competency-based curriculum in psychiatric mental health nursing. Conclusion: Competency-based curriculum development is one of the essential steps to facilitate teaching-learning process. The revision of curriculum may decrease theory-practice gap and pave the way for graduates to have essential competences for their roles.