National Dissemination of Motivation Enhancement Therapy in the Veterans Health Administration: Training Program Design and Initial Outcomes

Motivational enhancement therapy (MET) can be defined most simply as the “….combination of Motivational Interviewing (MI) with assessment feedback….” (Miller & Rollnick, 2013, p. 250). MET has a clear evidence-base promoting its use especially for treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs). Despite its efficacy and utility, MET is not widely used in clinical settings. In 2012, to facilitate the dissemination of MET, the Veterans Health Administration [VHA; the health care component of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)] launched a national training program that provided competency-based training in MET to VA staff working in SUD specialty care clinics. All VA facilities are required to implement EBPs for SUDs, such as MET, and ensure that they are available to veterans. This paper describes the VA MET training program and examines the impact of the MET training program on participants' knowledge of MET and self-reported MET skills. We review the components of the training and consultation and discuss adaptations made from the Project MATCH MET model to a real-world clinical setting. Of the 264 training participants we trained 2012-2013, 213 (81%) successfully completed all requirements of the training program, including requirements for demonstrating competency and attending at least 75% of scheduled consultation calls. After completion of the training program, approximately 85% of the clinicians reported implementing MET often (either 1-3 times per week or daily). Furthermore, we saw significant increases in MI knowledge from pretraining assessment to post-workshop and from pretraining to post-consultations. Additional training program details and revisions are discussed.