The motivational interview is a brief intervention that aims to stimulate behavioral changes, and it has been applied in this research to adolescent drug users, and identifying the changes after the motivational interviewing. The sample group consisted of 50 adolescent drug users who had committed offenses. All of them were evaluated by means of a standard protocol, then they received five motivational interview sessions and were subsequently reevaluated. The findings of the follow-up were: definitive increases in the number of days of abstinence from marijuana and alcohol, a reduction in the usage of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana, abstinence from cocaine, crack and solvents. There were also significant changes in the pre-contemplation motivational stage as well as the cognitive beliefs regarding substance use. The data shows that, after motivational interviewing, there were changes in the patterns of drug consumption, in the motivational stages and in the cognitive beliefs of the drug-using adolescent offenders.
Adolescents attitudes; Drug abuse; Brief psychotherapy; Motivation for change
