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Keep taking your medication or you will not get better. Who is the non-compliant patient?

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Nurse Prescribing

Abstract

The concept of the non-compliant patient is a product of what Foucault (1976) calls the ‘medical gaze’, a clinical construct embedded in its practical and ideological perspective which states that patients who do not follow doctors’ orders must be deviants. Non-compliance covers a range of assumed patient behaviour: those who misuse prescribed medication, fail to change their lifestyles to alleviate illness, or neglect clinical attendance. We shall examine the medication aspect here, primarily based on research relating to doctors’ consultations. It has obvious reference and significance for prescribing nurses, who must not automatically assume that all their patients will be happy to follow their instructions, because nurses might adhere more to a ‘social model’ of medicine.

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Authors
  1. Joel Richman
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Primary and Community Nursing, University of Central Lancashire, UK

    Jennifer L. Humphries MA, BSc(Hons), RN, RM, RHV, RHVT, CertEd (Senior Lecturer) (Senior Lecturer)

  2. Department of Health Care Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

    Joyce Green MA, BA, RN, RM, RHV, QN, NDNCert, RNT, DNT (Part-time Lecturer) (Part-time Lecturer)

Copyright information

© 1999 Joel Richman

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Richman, J. (1999). Keep taking your medication or you will not get better. Who is the non-compliant patient?. In: Humphries, J.L., Green, J. (eds) Nurse Prescribing. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14722-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14722-9_6

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-72611-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-14722-9

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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