Effectiveness of motivational interviewing in changing risk behaviours for people living with HIV

 Interventions that make use of motivational interviewing can be effective in changing risk behaviours for people living with HIV (1-18); the longer the motivational interviewing intervention, the more it may help intervention participants to maintain healthier practices over time (19).  For people living with HIV, motivational interviewing can have a positive effect on medication adherence (1;6-9;15;17;18), sexual risk behaviours (35;10;11), drug use (2;12;14), and numerous outcomes at the same time (13;16).  Motivational interviewing has been implemented across diverse population that differ in age, gender, race and socio-economic status (20-22).  Some motivational interviewing interventions showed sustained effects in health promoting behaviour over a long period of time (12;14;23), while others did (24).  Motivational interviewing interventions can be implemented by a variety of trained staff including therapists, clinicians, doctoral students, and Masters level students in social work, counselling, and health behaviour and health education (5;11;14).