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Sustainability of motivational interviewing skills in new Small Steps for Big Changes coaches

University of British Columbia

Background: Motivational interviewing (MI) has been demonstrated to be an effective counselling style for changing lifestyle behaviours. Fidelity of delivering MI skills has received little attention in health behaviour change research. The objective of this thesis was to examine the MI skills of newly trained coaches delivering a diabetes prevention program for six months after training. Methods: MI skills were monitored monthly, starting immediately post-MI training to six months post-training. The Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment (MICA) was used to code audio recordings of interactions between coaches and clients. The MICA breaks MI skills into seven categories, with MICA ≧ 3/5 for each category considered client-centered. Two independent coders coded one session for each client in a coaches’ first six months post-training. MI-competency scores were generated by averaging MICA scores for six months. Results: Coaches were 25±2 years of age, 71% female, and 43% had less than a bachelor’s degree. Mean MI-competency was 3.3±0.24 over six months. The majority (71%) of all coded sessions were classified as client-centered for all seven MICA categories. Conclusion: Inexperienced coaches attending a brief three-phase MI training were able to deliver MI-informed client-centered care in a community setting with high fidelity up to six months without the use of any booster training sessions. Results of this thesis will provide recommendations for training coaches in real-world settings.

Text

2019-08-09

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/71262

Health and Exercise Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/