Fidelity of Motivational Interviewing in an Early Childhood Caries Intervention Involving Indigenous Australian Mothers.

Objectives: This paper assessed the fidelity of an early childhood caries MI intervention among Aboriginal mothers in South Australia.
Methods: Four MI-trained staff delivered the intervention and all interviews were recorded. A randomly selected subset (n = 164, 41.2%) were tested for MI fidelity using the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity (MITI) code 3.1.1. A further randomly selected 20 taped sessions were additionally scored by an external expert to assess external reliability.
Results: Mean scores for evocation, collaboration, autonomy/support, direction and empathy ranged from 3.5 (95% CI 3.4-3.7) to 4.1 (95% CI 4.0-4.2). The mean global score was 3.8 (95% 3.7-3.9). The Reflection:Question ratio was 0.9 (95% CI 0.8-1.0), % Open-ended Questions was 54.9 (95% CI 50.0-59.8), % Complex Reflections was 54.0 (95% CI 50.5-57.5) and % MI-adherent statements was 95.0 (95% CI 92.0-98.0). Inter-assessor reliability was high.
Conclusions: Beginner to expert competency in fidelity to the MI model was observed.