The effectiveness of brief motivational interventions for preventing substance use among youth: a systematic review

Introduction Brief Motivational Interventions are intervention shorter than traditional ones, derived from Motivational Interview approach and aimed to promote the motivation to change especially in substance abuse and addiction field. Objectives The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the literature to evaluate the effectiveness of Brief Motivational Interventions in preventing and reducing the use of drugs among youth at risk. Materials and Methods The literature search was conducted on the biomedical databases EMBASE; PUBMED; EBSCO; THE COCHRANE LIBRARY applying the following keywords: motivational intervention; motivational enhancement; brief intervention; substance use; adolescents; youth; young adults. Titles were screened. Abstracts were read by two reviewers applying exclusion criteria. Full texts were examined by two reviewers to extract data from the included studies. Results A total of 877 records were obtained from the literature search. Reading the titles, 523 articles were excluded. The remaining 354 abstracts were then read, and 261 were excluded. After reading the full texts, 66 studies were excluded with motivation. Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were therefore included in the review. Each study administered one or two Motivational Interview sessions with duration ranging from 7 to 60 minutes. Most of the studies did not show statistically significant differences between the motivational intervention and the control arm, both at short and long follow-up, on the use of marijuana and other drugs, on frequency of use and most other outcomes. Conclusions The results did not indicate significant efficacy of Brief Motivational Interventions in preventing substance use among youth at risk.