Teaching motivational interviewing to nurse practitioner students: a pilot study.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Health Behavior Change
• Communication Skills

Background:

• Nurse practitioner (NP) education must include skills for promoting positive health behaviors.
• Motivational Interviewing (MI) is effective for behavior change, but integrating it into NP curricula is challenging.
• Limited research exists on teaching MI skills within NP programs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a brief educational module on motivational interviewing (MI) consistent counseling skills for graduate nursing students.
• To assess changes in students' communication patterns when using MI techniques.
• To gauge student satisfaction with MI training.

Main Methods:

• Quasi-experimental design utilizing pre- and post-intervention data.
• Data collected through narrative and video-taped patient encounters, surveys, and self-reports.
• Analysis of communication skills, including question types, advice-giving, affirmations, reflections, and summaries.

Main Results:

• Post-education narratives showed a significant decrease in closed questions and advice-giving without permission, and an increase in open questions.
• Video-taped sessions revealed significantly more affirmations, reflections, and summaries after the educational module.
• Student surveys and self-reports indicated high satisfaction with the MI educational experience.

Conclusions:

• A brief educational module can significantly improve graduate nursing students' MI counseling skills.
• Incorporating MI training into NP programs is feasible and recommended, with suggested formats including practice and booster sessions.
• Further research is needed to establish best practices for teaching MI to NPs and its impact on patient health outcomes.