Training Primary Care Physicians to Employ Self-Efficacy-Enhancing Interviewing Techniques: Randomized Controlled Trial of a Standardized Patient Intervention

Physician training in self-efficacy enhancing interviewing techniques (SEE IT): Effects on patient psychological health behavior change mediators

“…The findings provide partial support for our a priori hypotheses, and expand upon our previous work showing that SPI-delivered SEE IT training is valued by both resident and practicing primary care physicians and increases their use of the techniques in brief office visits with standardized patients [26, 42]. Nonetheless, our patient findings are preliminary in nature, since the patient component of our study was explicitly exploratory, examining effects on psychological HBCMs but not actual behavior change or health outcomes.…”

“…Details of our RCT of SEE IT training for practicing physicians were reported previously [42]. Briefly, we randomized family physicians and general internist physicians (N=50) from 12 primary care offices in the Sacramento, California area, drawn from the UCD Primary Care Network and Sutter Medical Group.…”

“…We enrolled patients for the current study from the same 12 primary care offices that participated in the physician training RCT [42]. From office visit schedule reports provided to us by the participating offices, research assistants telephoned patients who were: 1) aged ≥18 years; 2) had an assigned primary care physician who had participated in the trial; and 3) had an office visit scheduled in ≤4 weeks with a trial physician who had fully completed their participation ≥4 months previously.…”

“…SPI delivery maximizes the salience and impact of training by allowing providers to immediately practice and assimilate new skills in their regular work environment, and entails no provider time commitment beyond usual work hours. In two separate randomized controlled trials (RCTs), first resident and then practicing primary care physicians who received the intervention increased their use of SEE IT, and had favorable responses to training [26, 42]. …”

Getting from Intention to Action

“…A relationshipcentered communication skills course not only increased empathy and decreased burnout in physicians, but the patients of these physicians reported improved satisfaction with care. And in a randomized controlled trial conducted by Jerant et al 2 (full disclosure: RLK is a co-author), the authors evaluated a new approach to communication skills education called BSEE-IT^(self-efficacy-enhancing interviewing techniques). In contrast to more traditional forms of continuing medical education (CME), SEE-IT training was performed Bin situŵ ithin physicians' offices, and resulted in significantly higher use of recommended interviewing techniques such as negotiating goals, assessing readiness, and checking for understanding.…”