Kyle is a 14-year-old cisgender male who just moved to your town. At his first well-check, his single father brings him in reluctantly, stating, “We’ve never liked doctors.” Kyle has a history of asthma and obesity that have been relatively unchanged over time. He is an average student, an avid gamer, and seems somewhat shy. Privately he admits to occasional cannabis use. His father has no concerns, lamenting, “He’s always been pretty healthy for a fat kid.” Next patient?
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Of course there is a lot to work with here. You might be concerned with Kyle’s asthma; his weight, sedentary nature, and body image; the criticism from his father and concerns about self-esteem; the possibility of anxiety in relation to his shyness; and the health effects of his cannabis use. In the end, recommendations for behavior change seem likely. These might take the form of tips on exercise, nutrition, substance use, study habits, parenting, social activities, or mental health support; the literature on behavior change would suggest that any success will be predicated on trust. How can we learn from someone we do not trust?1
To build trust is no easy task, and yet is perhaps the foundation on which the entire clinical relationship rests. Guidance from decades of evidence supporting the use of motivational interviewing2 suggests that the process of building rapport can be neatly summed up in an acronym as PACE. This represents Partnership, Acceptance, Compassion, and Evocation. Almost too clichéd to repeat, the most powerful change agent is the person making the change. In the setting of pediatric health care, we sometimes lean on caregivers to initiate or promote change because they are an intimate part of the patient’s microsystem, and thus moving one gear (the parents) inevitably shifts something in connected gears (the children).
So Partnership is centered on the patient, but inclusive of any important person in the patient’s sphere. In a family-based approach, this might show up as leveraging Kyle’s father’s motivation for behavior change by having the father start an exercise routine. This role models behavior change, shifts the home environment around the behavior, and builds empathy in the parent for the inherent challenges of change processes.
Acceptance can be distilled into knowing that the patient and family are doing the best they can. This does not preclude the possibility of change, but it seats this possibility in an attitude of assumed adequacy. There is nothing wrong with the patient, nothing to be fixed, just the possibility for change.
Similarly, Compassion takes a nonjudgmental viewpoint. With the stance of “this could happen to anybody,” the patient can feel responsible without feeling blamed. Noting the patient’s suffering without blame allows the clinician to be motivated not just to empathize, but to help.
Dr. Andrew J. Rosenfeld
And from this basis of compassionate partnership, the work of Evocation begins. What is happening in the patient’s life and relationships? What are their own goals and values? Where are the discrepancies between what the patient wants and what the patient does? For teenagers, this often brings into conflict developmentally appropriate wishes for autonomy – wanting to drive or get a car or stay out later or have more privacy – with developmentally typical challenges regarding responsibility.3 For example:
Clinician: “You want to use the car, and your parents want you to pay for the gas, but you’re out of money from buying weed. I see how you’re stuck.”
Teen: “Yeah, they really need to give me more allowance. It’s not like we’re living in the 1990s anymore!”
Clinician: “So you could ask for more allowance to get more money for gas. Any other ideas?”
Teen: “I could give up smoking pot and just be miserable all the time.”
Clinician: “Yeah, that sounds too difficult right now; if anything it sounds like you’d like to smoke more pot if you had more money.”
Teen: “Nah, I’m not that hooked on it. ... I could probably smoke a bit less each week and save some gas money.”
The PACE acronym also serves as a reminder of the patience required to grow connection where none has previously existed – pace yourself. Here are some skills-based tips to foster the spirit of motivational interviewing to help balance patience with the time frame of a pediatric check-in. The OARS skills represent the fundamental building blocks of motivational interviewing in practice. Taking the case of Kyle as an example, an Open-Ended Question makes space for the child or parent to express their views with less interviewer bias. Reflections expand this space by underscoring and, in the case of complex Reflections, adding some nuance to what the patient has to say.
Clinician: “How do you feel about your body?”
Teen: “Well, I’m fat. Nobody really wants to be fat. It sucks. But what can I do?”
Clinician: “You feel fat and kind of hopeless.”
Teen: “Yeah, I know you’re going to tell me to go on a diet and start exercising. Doesn’t work. My dad says I was born fat; I guess I’m going to stay that way.”
Clinician: “Sounds like you and your dad can get down on you for your weight. That must feel terrible.”
Teen: “Ah, it’s not that bad. I’m kind of used to it. Fat kid at home, fat kid at school.”
Affirmations are statements focusing on positive actions or attributes of the patient. They tend to build rapport by demonstrating that the clinician sees the strengths of the patient, not just the problems.
Clinician: “I’m pretty impressed that you’re able to show up here and talk about this. It can’t be easy when it sounds like your family and friends have put you down so much that you’re even putting yourself down about your body.”
Teen: “I didn’t really want to come, but then I thought, maybe this new doctor will have some new ideas. I actually want to do something about it, I just don’t know if anything will help. Plus my dad said if I showed up, we could go to McDonald’s afterward.”
Summaries are multipurpose. They demonstrate that you have been listening closely, which builds rapport. They provide a chance to put information together so that both clinician and patient can reflect on the sum of the data and notice what may be missing. And they provide a pause to consider where to go next.
Clinician: “So if I’m getting it right, you’ve been worried about your weight for a long time now. Your dad and your friends give you a hard time about it, which makes you feel down and hopeless, but somehow you stay brave and keep trying to figure it out. You feel ready to do something, you just don’t know what, and you were hoping maybe coming here could give you a place to work on your health. Does that sound about right?”
Teen: “I think that’s pretty much it. Plus the McDonald’s.”
Clinician: “Right, that’s important too – we have to consider your motivation! I wonder if we could talk about this more at our next visit – would that be alright?”
Offices with additional resources might be able to offer some of those as well, if timing seems appropriate; for example, referral to a wellness coach or social worker or nutritionist could be helpful int his case. With the spirit of PACE and the skills of OARS, you can be well on your way to fostering behavior changes that could last a lifetime! Check out the resources from the American Academy of Pediatrics with video and narrative demonstrations of motivational interviewing in pediatrics.
Dr. Rosenfeld is assistant professor in the departments of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Vermont Medical Center and the university’s Robert Larner College of Medicine, Burlington. He reported no relevant disclosures. Email him at pdnews@mdedge.com.
References
1. Miller WR, Rollnick S. “Engagement and disengagement,” in “Motivational interviewing: Helping people change,” 3rd ed. (New York: Guilford, 2013).
2. Miller WR, Rollnick S. “The spirit of motivational interviewing,” in “Motivational interviewing: Helping people change,” 3rd ed. (New York: Guilford, 2013).
3. Naar S, Suarez M. “Adolescence and emerging adulthood: A brief review of development,” in “Motivational interviewing with adolescents and young adults” (New York: Guilford, 2011).