How You Ask Matters
Motivational Interviewing in Health CareAnother guideline here that you might find useful is that one well considered question is worth more than many mouthfuls of busy talk. Choose the question carefully, rather than ask a series of them that are perhaps less well-formed. Consider this question. You're with someone with diabetes, and you ask them as follows. One of the things that I'd like to ask you, knowing that you've been struggling with diabetes for many years, is what sort of changes could you make that might make you healthier?
I tell you why because you're at the sort of age now where it might be important to really protect you against heart disease and other things like stroke. So it's a good opportunity for us now to stock of this and to ask you a question like this. Now think about being at the receiving end of that. The poor hapless patient is probably gonna not know what the was, there's too many additional words on either side of the question that take away its potency. So a better way to put that would be something like Thinking about the future for you, what sort of changes might you make that will get you to feel healthier and more on top of your diabetes?
The question is contracted. It's simple. It's more well-thought-out, and it's free of the dribble either side. I just looked at your pressure. It's a little bit better, but it's still quite high. Do you have any ideas why that might be? Yeah. I I I didn't take it today because I noticed it makes me pee, but but this weekend, I took it, and I I went into a pharmacy and checked it. And my blood pressure was one twenty-five over seventy-eight.
Alright. So so you're out with your friends. Head this event, They said, you gotta go in. They dragged you here, and then tell me about what happened when you got here. People were asking me a lot of questions, really. I feel like everyone was asking me same things over and over, you know, like how many drinks have you had, how often do you drink, had any issues like this before? So, Sarah, let's have another look at the, medication. I know that you said you've been using this at home.
Tell me a bit about how you've been using this. Well, it's more just I think when it's quite cold and stuff, I've noticed that I'm a bit more short of breath. So I've just sort of if I'm feeling that way, I will I'll take the blue one.