Abstract
The illness experience is understood as the subjective dimension, socially structured, about the disease and its personal repercussions, referred to the field of shared practices, beliefs and values. The medication group discussed in this study stimulated the illness experience narratives production, to address the user's empowerment, starting from the dialogue about the psychotropics use and self-management. This is a qualitative, descriptive-exploratory study. The research question was: How is the illness experience presented in the narratives of medication groups participants? Twenty-two community mental health service users and five family members participated in two medication group meetings and three focus groups. The results analysis materialized from the perspective of medical anthropology and phenomenological psychopathology. The analysis categories in this article are: experience of participation in medication groups, use and medication self-management and experience of illness and diagnosis. The narratives produced indicated that group dialogues about medicines supports meaning formulate and sharing assigned to the mental illness experience and drug treatment. Therefore, these medication groups reinforced the joint performance of professionals, family members and users, expanding proposals of sensitive care to lived experience.
Keywords:
Mental health; Community psychiatry; Psychotropic drugs; Focus groups; Personal narrative