title: Complementary Tools to Empower and Sustain Behavior Change: Motivational Interviewing and Mindfulness.
abstract: Improving health behaviors is fundamental to preventing and controlling chronic disease. Healthcare providers who have a patient-centered communication style and appropriate behavioral change tools can empower patients to engage in and sustain healthy behaviors. This review highlights motivational interviewing and mindfulness along with other evidence-based strategies for enhancing patient-centered communication and the behavior change process. Motivational interviewing and mindfulness are especially useful for empowering patients to set self-determined, or autonomous, goals for behavior change. This is important because autonomously motivated behavioral change is more sustainable. Additional strategies such as self-monitoring are discussed as useful for supporting the implementation and maintenance of goals. Thus, there is a need for healthcare providers to develop such tools to empower sustained behavior change. The additional support of a new role, a health coach who specializes in facilitating the process of health-related behavior change, may be required to substantially impact public health.
authors.affiliation: Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
authors.forename: Stephanie Jean
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Sohl
authors.affiliation: Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
authors.forename: Gurjeet
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Birdee
authors.affiliation: Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
authors.forename: Roy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Elam
keywords: Health Behavior; Health Coaching; Mindfulness; Motivational Interviewing