Medicine-taking and recovery-focused mental health practice

This article was inspired by the need to revisit medicine-taking within the context of recovery-focused practice in mental health. Practice based on compliance is unlikely to succeed and is not resonant with the principles of recovery. Mental wellbeing associated with recovery is promoted, however, when service users and mental health workers collaborate in a therapeutic alliance to reach concordance in medicine-taking. This is because the collaborative processes involve choice, self-determination and empowerment. The aim of the therapeutic alliance is to maintain an optimal therapeutic effect from medicine-taking, not to inculcate compliance. Unfortunately concordance, compliance and adherence are still used interchangeably. Conceptual clarity is needed to drive recovery-focused practice in relation to medicine-taking.