Teaching brief motivational interviewing to Year three medical students

Objectives In 2005, the authors developed and tested a curriculum to teach Year 3 Yale University medical students a behaviour change counselling approach called ‘brief motivational interviewing’ (BMI). Brief motivational interviewing is a patient‐centred approach designed to promote changes in patient behaviour within the time constraints imposed by a busy medical practice. Methods Standardised patients/instructors delivered the curriculum within a single 2‐hour training episode using a teaching acronym called ‘CHANGE’ to promote the students' learning. The authors used a pretest, post‐test and 4‐week follow‐up design to assess students' BMI skills (as measured by the Helpful Response Questionnaire), knowledge and attitudes toward the approach. Results Students successfully increased their use of BMI‐consistent behaviours, primarily by increasing the frequency and depth of their reflections and by reducing the frequency with which they incorporated communication roadblocks and closed questions into their responses (all P‐values ≤ 0.05). Students also showed increases in BMI knowledge, interest in the approach, confidence in their ability to use BMI, and commitment to incorporating BMI skills into their future medical practice (all P‐values ≤ 0.05). Conclusions The findings suggest that Year 3 medical students can learn basic BMI skills and knowledge and develop positive attitudes toward the approach within a relatively short period of time. The authors discuss the study's limitations and future directions for teaching students BMI.