Motivational interviewing: an evidence-based approach to counseling helps patients follow treatment recommendations.

Motivational interviewing is an evidenced-based counseling approach that health care providers can use to help patients adhere to treatment recommendations. It emphasizes using a directive, patient-centered style of interaction to promote behavioral change by helping patients explore and resolve ambivalence. This article will help nurses learn how to use motivational interviewing to encourage patients to adhere to treatment recommendations. The basic theoretical underpinnings, principles, and methods of motivational interviewing are discussed, with an emphasis on acting in accordance with the "spirit" of the approach.

Adding a more rigorous scientific agenda to the empirically supported treatment movement.

As the empirically supported treatment (EST) effort has expanded, there are efforts to make the study of ESTs a more integral part of training programs. In its present form, the EST list provides a poor model of how to evaluate treatment and scientific issues related to our field. This article offer several suggestions regarding how to establish a more relevant scientific agenda for the committee's work if the study of ESTs is to usefully influence training programs. Recommendations are made to encourage programs and the CSP to study mechanisms of change, important contextual variables for therapy delivery, the distinction between statistical significance and clinical meaningfulness, dissemination, cost-effectiveness, and iatrogenic effects. It is argued that any program that created a curriculum educating students to thoughtfully address these issues when evaluating therapies would be producing sound clinical scientists regardless of the quality of the EST list itself.