The Impact of a One-Day Applied Training in Motivational Interviewing on Health Practitioners’ Perceived Competence, Autonomy, Efficacy, and Attitudes to Facilitate Behavior Change: A Pilot Study

Objective: Because the practical application of motivational interviewing (MI) for health practitioners has been highlighted as a limitation to the approach, the purpose of this pilot study was to assess the impact of a one-day training workshop in MI applied through Co-Active life coaching (CALC) skills on health care practitioners’ perceived competence, autonomy and attitudes toward facilitating health-behavior changes. Methods: A pre-test/post-test multiple baseline design was used with 10 health care practitioners. Data was collected beginning 25 days prior and for 4 weeks post-training. Participants received a 7.5 hour interactive workshop in January 2011. The Perceived Competence Scale, the Perceived Autonomous Motivation Scale and the Nutrition in Patient care Survey were adapted and administered to assess attitudes toward facilitating health-behavior changes in clinical care. Results: Significant increases in perceived competence [Cohen’s effect size d=4.61], perceived autonomy [d=1.62], practitioner efficacy [d=2.22], and behavior change in routine care [d=1.69] were reported and remained clinically significant four weeks after the training. Conclusion: Participation in this applied workshop was effective and should be explored further with a larger group. Practice Implications: This training improved practitioners’ comfort to counsel behavior changes and may be a useful training model for health professionals. *Corresponding author: Jennifer D Irwin, PhD School of Health Studies, Room 207, Arthur and Sonia Labatt Health Sciences Building, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A5B9, Tel: 519-661-2111 ext. 88367, Fax: 519-850-2432; E-mail: [email protected] Received November 04, 2011; Accepted November 16, 2011; Published November 18, 2011 Citation: Wiley EJ, Morrow D, Irwin JD (2011) The Impact of a One-Day Applied Training in Motivational Interviewing on Health Practitioners’ Perceived Competence, Autonomy, Efficacy, and Attitudes to Facilitate Behavior Change: A Pilot Study. J Community Med Health Edu 1:101. doi:10.4172/jcmhe.1000101 Copyright: © 2011 Wiley EJ, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.