What influences patients’ medication adherence? Mental health nurse perspectives and a need for education and training

This paper explores the role of mental health nurses in medication adherence and their perspective of what influences patients' medication non-adherence. Forty-eight mental health nurses with active patient caseloads completed a comprehensive questionnaire assessing a number of variables related to medications, including whom they felt was primarily responsible for monitoring the side-effects of medication, their knowledge skills and confidence in dealing with medication adherence and their prior education and training in medication adherence strategies. Lack of patient insight was endorsed as the strongest influence on patient non-adherence. Over 84% of nurses indicated they did not have any prior education or training in medication adherence strategies. Implications of the findings for education and training and nurses' roles in supporting medication adherence are discussed.