Psychiatric nursing roles in a community mental health center.

We describe the addition of medication monitoring to the duties of nurses working as case managers in a day treatment program for the chronically mentally ill. The nurses used their medical and behavioral knowledge to form a more complete picture of the patient than either a visiting psychiatrist or a case-manager who was not a nurse could do. This improved the integration of medication and other patient management decisions. It also improved cooperation between psychiatrists and nurses, better using the time and skills of both.