Motivational interviewing may facilitate professional interactions with inspectees during environmental inspections and enforcement conversations

PeerJ. 2014 Aug 19:2:e508. doi: 10.7717/peerj.508. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

In the present work inspectors used Motivational Interviewing (MI) to promote environmentally sustainable behaviour in inspectees. MI is a counselling method with scientific support for various health behaviour changes. Inspectors (n = 32) in four Swedish municipalities received training in MI over a yearlong period. Their MI competency as well as their experience of using MI in routine inspections was monitored over the year. The results showed that inspectors significantly increased their competence in the Empathy variable, defined as accurate listening to inspectees. Inspectors judged MI to be useful in inspections, approximately 5 on the 6-point scale. There were indications that MI may be easier or more appropriate to use in certain inspections than in others.

Keywords: Behaviour change; Environmental behaviour; Environmental inspections and enforcement; Intervention; Motivational interviewing.

Grants and funding

This work was carried out as part of the research programme Efficient environmental inspections and enforcement (EMT: Effektiv miljötillsyn). The EMT research was funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, dnr 09/63. EMT was a pilot project 2009–2012, that used a multidisciplinary approach to analyse Swedish environmental inspections and enforcement from a variety of perspectives. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.