In this, the first of two articles, Celia Feetam and Hannah Roberts focus on factors contributing to poor medicine‐taking behaviour in schizophrenia and the consequences of this. The second article will consider treatment variables that may influence such behaviour and the interventions that have been proposed to improve medicine‐taking behaviour in those diagnosed with schizophrenia. These articles follow on from two articles published in Progress in 2009 on Medicine‐taking behaviour in depression.^1,2. Copyright © 2010 Wiley Interface Ltd