Using motivational interviewing in the community pharmacy to increase adult immunization readiness: A pilot evaluation

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate whether the use of motivational interviewing (MI) in the community pharmacy improves immunization readiness and rates for hepatitis B, hepatitis A/B combination, herpes zoster, pneumococcal, and tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis immunizations.

Setting: Kroger Pharmacy.

Practice description: Grocery store pharmacies located in the Atlanta, GA, metropolitan area offering a variety of patient care services, including medication therapy management and immunizations.

Practice intervention: Patients were identified during workflow, and MI encounters were initiated to those eligible to receive hepatitis A/B combination, hepatitis B, herpes zoster, pneumococcal and/or tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis vaccines.

Evaluation: Following each encounter, pharmacists completed patient demographic information and responses to 5-point Likert scale questions assessing patient readiness to receive immunizations at the beginning and end of the encounter, and if follow-up occurred, 5-point Likert scale questions assessing pharmacists' perception of using MI.

Results: Immunization rates at the intervention site did not significantly increase due to the small sample size and other project limitations. Patient readiness to receive immunizations improved from the beginning to the end of the MI encounter and was statistically significant for hepatitis B (P = 0.001) and pneumococcal (P = 0.033) vaccines. Pharmacists agreed MI was an effective tool to discuss immunizations, agreed they could communicate more effectively about immunizations, and agreed MI could be incorporated into the community pharmacy workflow.

Conclusion: Motivational interviewing may be a useful tool for community pharmacists to use in discussing immunizations. Larger studies need to be completed to determine the impact MI could have on immunization readiness and rates in the community pharmacy.