Monitoring Motivational Interviewing Strategies: Creating Provider and Client Reports to Encourage Implementation

Motivational interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based practice that has been successfully applied to at-risk youth. Well-validated measures that track MI integrity may not be used in practice settings due to the time to complete them, recording requirements and training involved. A simpler, less resource-intensive instrument may encourage programs and providers to attend more to the quality of MI use during implementation.

To validate a method involving two measures, Youth and Provider Logs, to assist in monitoring MI use.

Clients and providers reported on provider behaviors consistent and inconsistent with MI during the session. Factor analyses were conducted to examine whether measures showed clear scales assessing MI use and analyses were conducted to assess validity of these measures.

Both Youth and Provider Logs showed a clear and consistent 3-factor structure assessing MI-consistent behavior, MI-inconsistent behavior, and alcohol-related topics. Significant correlations were found between Youth Logs and youth reports of rapport with providers, and satisfaction with services. Provider MI-inconsistent scores were significantly inversely predictive of observer fidelity scores over time.

This study offers provider and client measures for tracking use of MI in sessions, which are a simpler, less resource-intensive method for monitoring MI, and may encourage fidelity during implementation.