Date of Award
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
Background: Effective communication is vital when interacting with others, regardless of the profession. When healthcare providers lack the skills to facilitate conversations about behavior changes, poor patient outcomes can be produced. New graduate nurses often encounter difficulties in effectively communicating with patients and display reluctance to engage with patients and their families. Ineffective communication may lead to increased anxiety, miscommunication, and mistrust. This communication gap can hinder therapeutic relationships, patient engagement, and overall health outcomes. Communication plays a crucial role in student nurses’ self-confidence, motivation, and personal and professional growth. Therefore, role transition for new nurses can be difficult and complex, often leading to feelings of inadequacy. Additionally, this leads to reluctance, anxiety, and decreased self-efficacy when interacting with patients, family, and healthcare team members.
Objective: The purpose of this project is to evaluate whether introducing an evidence-based, patient-centered communication approach to behavioral change through education and training during a first-semester nursing course increases students’ perceived confidence and communication skills. This research aims to fill this gap by determining if early exposure to motivational interviewing (MI) principles positively impacts students’ perceived ability to engage patients effectively, ultimately supporting the development of professional communication skills.
Method: Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory of Motivation will guide the development and implementation of a single educational session on MI. This study used a pre-test/post-test design with convenient sampling from 56 nursing students enrolled in a first-semester Population Health class at a southeastern university in the United States. The participants completed a validated patient-centered survey measuring communication confidence and self-efficacy before and after a single forty-five-minute educational session on MI, which included didactic instructions and reflective discussion. Descriptive statistics and a paired t-test were used to analyze changes in pre-test and post-test scores (N = 48).
Results: MI education results demonstrated a statistically significant increase in both students' perceived confidence and communication skills. On a 5-point Likert scale, perceived confidence increased from a pretest mean of 3.66 (SD = 0.53) to a posttest mean of 4.66 (SD = 0.29), t(46) = -12.31, p < .001, with a large effect size (Cohen's d = 1.80). Perceived communication skills increased from a pretest mean of 4.07 (SD = 0.47) to a posttest mean of 4.68 (SD = 0.40), t(47) = -7.11, p < .001, also with a large effect size (Cohen's d = 1.03). Posttest communication scores showed a negative skew (-1.563), suggesting a possible ceiling effect.
Conclusion: This research suggests that MI positively affects first-semester nursing students’ perceived confidence and communication skills, making it a beneficial intervention to integrate into nursing curricula. Novice nurses entering the profession would have increased confidence and effective communication skills, which may indirectly improve patient outcomes.
Recommended Citation
Branyon, Norma L., "Empowering Change: Impact of Motivational Interviewing on First-Semester Nursing Students' Perceived Confidence and Communication Skills" (2026). Theses. 68.
https://roar.una.edu/theses/68
