Effectiveness of two-stage training for brief interventionists in a multi-site trial.

Effective training in psychosocial treatment modalities is critical to maintaining fidelity in both research and practice. This poster reports on the effectiveness of a two-stage training for interventionists participating in a NIDA Clinical Trials Network study, protocol CTN-0047: Screening, Motivational Assessment, Referral, and Treatment in Emergency Departments (SMART-ED). Interventionists at the first two sites initiating the study received a 2-day training in basic Motivational Interviewing skills, followed 1 week later by a 2-day training in the specific counseling intervention used in the trial. They then completed practice sessions with consenting ED patients. Audiotapes of these sessions were reviewed by an expert rater, using the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity scale (MITI, v. 3.1.2) and content checklists. To become certified, interventionists had to score at least 4.0 (“competent”) on the 5-point Global Clinician Rating from the MITI and 80% on content checklists, for 2 out of 3 sessions. Participating interventionists were 5 females and 3 males, 4 of whom were licensed or certified as counselors, with 2 years mean counseling experience (range 0-7). Their self-reported pre-training understanding of MI was moderate (5.5 mean rating on Likert scale 0-9). All participants met criteria for certification after only 2 practice sessions. In conclusion, the two-stage interventionist training used in this study produced excellent results across the first 8 interventionists trained. Focusing first on fundamentals and later on specific intervention content may bestow an advantage for learning and implementing brief interventions based on a motivational interviewing approach.

Related protocols: CTN-0047