MEDICATION ADHERENCE IN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND ROLE OF PSYCHIATRIC NURSE

Schizophrenia is a disease that affects more than 21 million people in the world and causes burden of disease. About half of these patients do not comply with drug treatment despite the proven benefits of psychopharmacological interventions. However, Medication adherence problems of patients with schizophrenia cause patients cause many adverse consequences such as increased hospitalization rates and health expenditures, exacerbations of disease symptoms, relapses, impaired functioning and suicide. It is revealed that it is a necessity to improve medication adherence in schizophrenia patients with these results. Therefore, the factors that predispose to medication adherence in schizophrenia should be identified. Nurses play a key role in solving this problem, given that compliance with drug treatment is among the primary goals of psychiatric nurses. This article was written with the aim of investigating the factors that make medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia and to explain the role of the psychiatric nurse in managing drug compliance problems.