Background
Screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) for alcohol use in primary care—often using motivational interviewing (MI)—is an effective preventive service. Medical residency programs have begun offering training in these areas, but little research has been conducted to examine the impact of SBIRT/MI training length on residents' satisfaction, affect, and behavioral intentions.
Objective
We measured residents' satisfaction with their training in addition to variables shown in previous research to predict medical professionals' intention to perform SBIRT.
Methods
This study focused on 2 SBIRT/MI training structures: a 4- to 6-hour training using didactic, experiential, and interactive methods and a brief 1-hour session explaining the same principles in a noninteractive format. Immediately following each training intervention, participating residents from internal medicine (IM), pediatrics (PEDS), medicine-pediatrics (IM-PEDS), and emergency medicine (EM) programs completed a 22-item instrument derived from established questionnaires; responses to each item were dichotomized, and comparisons were conducted between the training groups using Fisher exact test.
Results
Of 80 participating residents, 59 IM, PEDS, and IM-PEDS residents completed the longer training, and 21 EM residents completed the shorter training. All participating residents reported high levels of satisfaction, although EM residents were comparatively less satisfied with their shorter training session.
Conclusions
Both SBIRT/MI training structures were feasible and were accepted by learners, although the 2 groups' perceptions of the training differed. Future research into the underlying causes of these differences may be useful to the application of SBIRT/MI training during residency.
Prior to SBIRT training, most clinical practitioners reported asking patients about substance use, but few reported regularly using formal substance use screening tools. This may have implications for the importance of SBIRT training as part of curricular work, and for the internal content foci of SBIRT curricula.
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