Feasibility of teaching motivational interviewing to parents of young adults with recent-onset schizophrenia and co-occurring cannabis use

Maarten Smeerdijk*, Rene Keet, Lieuwe de Haan, Christine Barrowclough, Don Linszen, Gerard Schippers

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This study examined the feasibility of providing motivational interviewing (MI) training to parents of young adults with recent-onset schizophrenia and co-occurring cannabis use. The training was offered in a mental health care setting as part of a family motivational intervention (FMI). Ninety-seven parents were randomly assigned to either FMI or routine family support (RFS). To obtain a measure of parent's MI skills at baseline and 3 months after they completed FMI, their role-play interactions with an actor portraying their child were coded. The coding method had satisfactory inter-rater reliability and internal consistency. At follow-up, parents in FMI showed significantly greater adherence to (p=.03) and competence in (p=.04) MI than parents in RFS. Parents in FMI also demonstrated significantly greater increases in expressing empathy (p=.01). These results demonstrate that FMI is a feasible method for increasing MI skills in parents. Additional research is needed to better understand the unique application of MI to parent-child interactions.? 2014.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)340-345
JournalJournal of Substance Abuse Treatment
Volume46
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2014

Keywords

  • Motivational interviewing
  • Recent-onset schizophrenia
  • Cannabis use
  • Family intervention

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