Motivational Interviewing Training for Psychiatric Medication Adherence

Nonadherence to psychiatric medications was identified as an issue worldwide and in a non-profit organization for women recovering from substance use disorders (SUD) in the southwestern United States. Non-adherence is associated with increased hospitalizations and relapse. A literature review indicated that motivational interviewing (MI) was an evidence-based intervention for increasing psychiatric medication adherence in women recovering from SUD. This project aimed to assess if training the organization staff on MI, would impact their beliefs, knowledge, and comfort of using MI on their clients with non-adherence. The Theory of Planned Behavior is the underlying principle of the project. A recruitment flyer was sent to the organization via email, and interested staff attended the training on the basics of MI via a PowerPoint presentation through video conferencing. Pre-, post-, and one-month follow-up questionnaires were provided to assess participants' knowledge, familiarity, and comfort with MI. The questionnaires consisted of the reliable/validated Beliefs About Medication questionnaire (BMQ) and questions about MI. Participants were deidentified for data collection. A Friedman's test and descriptive statistics were used for analysis. 17 staff participated; five one-month follow-ups were completed. Participants believed medication was more beneficial than harmful and necessary for improvement-nonsignificant: Friedman test p = .179. Upon follow-up, 40% reported being comfortable using MI while 60% reported they had not used MI yet. MI training may improve staff comfort and ability to address medication nonadherence. A larger sample may lead to significant and generalizable results.