The World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe recently released an educational textbook describing how health professionals can use the Ida Motivation Tools (the Line, the Box, and the Circle) to better understand and empower patients to change their lifestyle and behavior.
The WHO textbook, titled “Engage in the Process of Change; Facts and Methods,” explains how the motivation tools can help support health professionals in a range of medical areas, such as surgery, cardiology and audiology. The textbook emphasizes that the tools are easy-to-use and flexible enough to adapt to the individual patient, making them an excellent resource for doctors and other health care professionals who want to support their patients through the process of change.
Hanne Tønnesen, CEO of the Clinical Health Promotion Centre at Bispejerg University Hospital in Copenhagen, edited the textbook. Tønnesen participated in the Ida seminar series on motivational engagement in 2009. She also played an important role in helping the Ida Institute modify the motivational tools for use in the field of audiology.
Ida anthropologist Hans Henrik Philipsen contributed to the textbook by providing comments and suggestions.
“We are very excited about the release of this groundbreaking publication. The textbook calls attention to the importance and value of the motivation tools in the field of audiology and other areas of health care,” stated Philipsen. “The textbook will help introduce the motivation tools to healthcare systems, clinics and health care professionals around the world. We hope that this renewed focus on the tools will result in the collection of more evidence to show the positive effect on patient outcomes.”
Ida Fellows Sam Trychin and John Greer Clark contributed a chapter to the WHO textbook describing how the motivation tools can be used in audiology to support patients with hearing loss. In their chapter, they underscore the importance of communication and dialogue with the patient.
“The experience of clinical audiologists shows that detailed discussions of a patient’s audiogram and the implications of measured hearing deficits on speech reception cannot build the same motivation as is created through a personal exploration of the negative impacts of hearing loss identified by one of any number of self-assessment tools developed by audiologist,” they wrote.
In conclusion, Trychin and Clark state that the motivation tools can significantly impact the success of the audiologist’s clinical endeavors and can be applied to group sessions with relatives and other communication partners.
The textbook is part of the WHO Regional Office for Europe’s development of a new European policy for health, called Health 2020. Health 2020 aims to strengthen health systems, revitalize public health infrastructures and institutions, engage the public and other health actors, and develop coherent, evidence-based health policies.