Motivating Patients to Make Healthy Changes

My host site is CommunityHealth, a free clinic for individuals who are both low-income and do not qualify for health insurance, whether it is through their employer or through the Affordable Care Act. At CommunityHealth, I facilitate diabetes management, diabetes prevention, and nutrition/cooking classes. For those classes, the first step is to know the material well, so I have studied up on diabetes and healthy eating. The second (and most important) step, is knowing how to connect with the patients that come to the classes. A lot of times, the patients have limited access to healthy foods or do not know what foods are healthy, so they resort to eating fast food or foods that are cheap but have no nutritional value. This results in a high population of patients with diabetes or who are at risk for developing diabetes. Sometimes patients have people who tell them what they should and should not eat. It is a difficult thing to constantly feel judged about your lifestyle choices. When I am teaching the classes, it is hard to find a style that does not sound like I am telling them what they need to do.

In a training we received for National Health Corps Chicago, members learned about motivational interviewing. Motivational interviewing is a way of counseling and teaching that focuses on helping patients to make decisions for themselves. Instead of preaching about healthy lifestyles, you talk to the patients about what they feel they need to change and what motivations they have to make that change. Motivational interviewing encourages open-ended questions instead of yes or no questions. Instead of asking'do you want to change your eating habits", you can ask'what are some eating habits that you think can help you eat healthier".

The training in motivational interviewing has helped me to be more aware of how I engage with a health education class. I do not want to be the type of instructor who preaches and tells patients how they should live. My goal is to be the type of instructor who can understand the situation that the patients are in and can motivate them to make healthy changes. For me, it is a good class if one healthy change is made because little changes put together are what make up a big lifestyle change that can have a positive impact on someone's health.

This blog post was written by NHC Chicago 2016-17 member Genesis Rios.

Genesis is the Community Outreach and Education Coordinator at CommunityHealth.