Purpose
This study aimed to test innovative Motivational Interviewing (MI) training strategies: remote workshop and avatar conversation simulations among community mental health staff.
Innovation
Researchers provided an engaging, interactive tool for learning and practicing MI to a variety of real-world practitioners and compared two methods for measuring skills: automated scoring from avatar simulations and coded interviews using the validated Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity (MITI) tool.
Methods
Attitudes, beliefs, and MI skills of 127 practitioners implementing three distinct research projects were examined: ACHIEVE-D (weight loss); IMPACT (tobacco smoking cessation); and RHYTHM (CVD risk reduction).
Results
95% of participants believed MI was important to learn; 88% completed the workshop; 64% used the avatar-based training. Practice improvements were modest and inconsistent over time across the three projects. While underutilized, 47 participants (75%) who tried the avatar training at least once felt that it helped develop their skills.
Conclusions
Community mental health practitioners value learning MI. Their engagement with the asynchronous avatar training resources was insufficient and did not meaningfully improve their observed MI skills. Although a novel feature of the avatar-based training, the automated conversation scoring appeared to overestimate performance for all MI metrics relative to MITI scores at the same time points.