Utilization of patient expertise in medication groups.

Medication groups can be an effective way for the psychiatrist to assess changing medication requirements, while also informing patients about the medications that they are taking. Groups can also facilitate patients' own sense of expertise by allowing them to teach each other and to share their own experience with medications. Two different groups are described that encourage chronically mentally ill patients to gain a sense of expertise about their medication. These groups increase patient involvement in their own medication and seem to increase medication compliance, while also decreasing the amount of physician time required to provide effective treatment.