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Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a method for encouraging people to make behavioral changes to improve health outcomes. We used systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate MI's efficacy in medical care settings.

Database searches located randomized clinical trials that compared MI to comparison conditions and isolated the unique effect of MI within medical care settings.

Forty-eight studies (9618 participants) were included. The overall effect showed a statistically significant, modest advantage for MI: Odd ratio = 1.55 (CI: 1.40–1.71), z = 8.67, p < .001. MI showed particular promise in areas such as HIV viral load, dental outcomes, death rate, body weight, alcohol and tobacco use, sedentary behavior, self-monitoring, confidence in change, and approach to treatment. MI was not particularly effective with eating disorder or self-care behaviors or some medical outcomes such as …