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Introduction: Change talk (CT), or client language that is consistent with making a behavioral change, has been found to contribute to Motivational Interviewing’s (MI) efficacy. It is not known, however, if change talk helps to explain MI’s effect on instigating a quit attempt in smokers with serious mental illness.
Methods: We measured CT and sustain talk (ST) in smokers with serious mental illness (SMI) randomized to receive a single session adaptation of motivational interviewing (AMI) or an interactive education intervention. We evaluated relationships between change/sustain talk, treatment condition, and quit attempts.
Results: Participants receiving the AMI condition had higher proportions of CT and lower proportions of ST than the interactive education condition. However, proportion of change talk did not mediate the relationship between treatment condition and outcome, nor was proportion of change talk in the tenth decile predictive of outcome above total proportion of change talk.
Conclusions: Our study is the first to show that motivational interviewing has the same change talk augmenting effect in individuals with SMI as those without SMI. Given that anhedonia, negative affect, and depressive symptoms are a major part of serious mental illnesses (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), it is encouraging that MI can generate change talk in this population. Future smoking cessation induction trials with larger samples should investigate whether greater amounts of CT lead to increased quit attempts in this population.

ETD_10344

M.S.

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-230j-d063

ETD graduate

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