Effectiveness of motivational interviewing on medication adherence in patients with breast cancer

Introduction: Breast cancer is a chronic and debilitating disease that accompanied with many psychological problems in diagnosis and treatment process, which reduces adherence to treatment. Various interventional models have been used to increase adherence to treatment. One of these models is motivational interview. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of motivational interviewing on adherence to treatment, for patients with breast cancer. Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial, 44 patients with breast cancer who referred to Kowsar hospital in Semnan were randomly selected and assigned into three groups (15 in the group intervention, 14 in individualized intervention and 15 in the control group). Morisky 8-Item MedicationAdherenceQuestionnaire used for pre and post-test. After pre-test, individual and group motivational interviews (5 sessions of 45 minutes) performed, then the post-test taken from all three groups. Data analyzed by covariance analysis in SPSS-21 software. Results: Results of one-way ANOVA showed that there was no significant difference in pre-test scores of medication adherence between groups (F= 0.188, P= 0.829).The results showed that the mean score for MedicationAdherencein individualized and group intervention ranged from 7.33 to 9.69 and 5.4 to 8, respectively, while in the control group was 5.6 to 4.20. Therefore, motivational interviewing increases medicationadherencein individualized and group intervention (P<0.002). Conclusion: Generally, motivational interviewing is effective in increasing medicationadherence in patients with breast cancer. Because there is no significant difference between individualized and group intervention, group intervention recommended due to the cost-effectiveness.