Motivational Interviewing Interventions for the Treatment of Suicidality in Adolescents: A Scoping Review

Adolescent suicidality warrants significant public health attention. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a widely applied intervention with empirical support across health care settings. The current scoping review aims to summarize MI-based interventions for adolescent suicidality, including key findings, settings, types of interventionists, and use of fidelity monitoring.

A literature search was conducted with four databases (PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, and PsycINFO) using the following search terms: motivational interviewing, motivational interview, motivational change, suicidality, self-harm, non-suicidal self-injury, youth, adolescent, child, and children.

In total, 10 articles published between 2013 and 2021 were included. These studies included five settings and nine types of interventionists. All but one described fidelity monitoring of some kind including four that used the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity code 3.1 (MITI). Four of the studies described reductions in adolescent suicidality variables, while others described improvements in a range of related outcomes, including depression symptoms, family support, self-efficacy, problem solving, use of safety planning, and attendance at follow-up mental health care visits.

Results suggest that MI is a feasible and acceptable intervention for adolescents experiencing suicidality. Results also align with prior research in other clinical areas that MI is highly flexible in its application.