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

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.