Motivational Interviewing in Health Care: Helping Patients Change Behavior

Behavior change is a critical part of effective health care. The final decision to become healthier, however, is that of the patient and not the practitioner. Anyone who has treated patients knows that the adoption of a new healthy behavior, the cessation of an unhealthy behavior, or the commitment to adhere to medical advice is central to effective medical care and difficult to achieve. Rollnick, Miller, and Butler present this book as a means to aid practitioners in achieving behavior change in their patients. Although the goal may seem lofty, the work of these investigators has received much attention over the past decade. Motivational Interviewing (MI), a method of interacting with patients to enhance behavior change, is a welltested and established method with over 160 randomized clinical trials demonstrating its efficacy across an array of medical