Motivational interviewing based psychological counseling in rehabilitation. Is it effective for IHD patients?

Abstract

Introduction: There are no doubts that motivational interviewing (MI) (Miller, Rollnick, 2013) is an effective technique for excessive drinkers to reduce alcohol usage. Multiple studies confirmed successful appliance of MI for changing unhealthy behaviours (Knight et al., 2006; Thompson et al., 2011) such as unhealthy diet, smoking, physical inactivity. Nevertheless, there is a lack of information how it works with Ischemic heart disease (IHD) patients during their rehabilitation. Purpose: Study’s goal is to verify MI suitability for changing IHD patients’ health behaviours during rehabilitation. Method: Research was performed in Abromiskes rehabilitation hospital’s Cardiology department (Lithuania). Study’s sample consisted of 179 patients (124 men, 55 women). All subjects from the sample were randomly chosen patients from all Abromiskes rehabilitation hospital’s IHD population during the research period. 83 patients were invited to change their health behaviour during 1 to 4 MI based psychological counseling sessions. The rest of sample was the comparison group. Readiness to Change Questionnaire (Rollnick et al., 1992) was used at the beginning and at the end of rehabilitation for evaluation of readiness to change health behaviour. Results: Mann-Whitney criteria showed statistically significant difference (p<0.05) between experimental and control groups in readiness to change their physical activity (mean ranks of experimental group subjects were higher than the ones in control group at the end of rehabilitation). There are no statistically significant differences between experimental and control groups in readiness to change alcohol, smoking, unhealthy nutrition, nevertheless the mean ranks indicate that patients in experimental group have higher readiness to change. Discussion and conclusions: MI based psychological counseling is effective for changing IHD patients’ physical activity.[...]