Ethnographie de la prise de médicament à domicile. A l'interface du sanitaire et du social

The Medical and Social Support Service for Disabled Adults (SAMSAH) is among the latest initiatives which lead to co-operation between social workers and caregivers. Building on ethnographic research on a SAMSAH specialized in the field of mental illness, we will focus here on one of the activities that occupy a central place in help at the patient's home: namely the taking of prescribed medicines. The way in which medicine moves from the prescribing doctor to being taken by the patient, amounts to a boundary-object around which the roles of the different actors involved in the experience of mental illness are negotiated, fitted together and reorganized. We will find that the local stakeholders involved in the control of taking prescribed treatments act in a pragmatic way bringing together two different rationales, one focused on the defense of individual liberties, the other focused on safety and protection.