Pharmacy Student Motivational Interviewing Intervention in Hospitalized Patients - A Pilot Study

Purpose The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of training and coordinating pharmacy students to deliver motivational interviewing (MI) education with patients who have hypertension and low medication adherence in a hospital setting. Methods This was a pre-post pilot study with pharmacy students using MI counseling on patients with poorly controlled hypertension within Houston Methodist Hospital to compare patient’s self-reported blood pressure, medication adherence, and self-efficacy level collected during hospitalization and thirty days after discharge. Results A total of 155 patients records were pre-screened for uncontrolled blood pressure upon admission with only 28 patients (18%) consenting to participate in the study. Of those who consented, 15 patients (54%) successfully followed up by phone to provide post-intervention data on self-reported blood pressure, adherence, and self-efficacy scores. There was a trend for decreased blood pressure (p value <0.01, n=12) and improved medication adherence scores (p value <0.001, n=15) for patients with successful follow up. There was no significant difference in the proportion of patients who had poor self-efficacy before and after the study (p value <0.25, n=15). Conclusion This pilot study demonstrated feasibility and reproducibility of training pharmacy students to use core MI skills to counsel patients within the hospital setting. While there was a low rate of patient consenting to the study due to allocation of student time to the enrollment process, there was a favorable trend in reducing patient blood pressure and improving the proportion of medication adherence in follow up patients post-discharge. Extending the enrollment time period, and allocating more dedicated time of study participants to the training and consenting process may improve the consent rates of future study designs.