[Communication strategies to motivate patients to follow doctor's advice]

The growing attention to the preventive aspects of health care has raised the question how to motivate patients to modify potentially health damaging habits such as smoking, alcohol abuse, wrong diet or poor exercise. The present paper examines the theory and the techniques of the motivational interview and proposes practical examples which illustrate how the physician may overcome patient's resistance. The authors describe the principal aspects of the process of motivational change and some of the corresponding attitudes and skills which the physician has to adopt in each phase of this process. The basic assumptions are that the patient is the main agent of change and that the physician's task is to facilitate this process and to sustain the patient's efforts.