MAMMOGRAPHY AND THE ROLE OF MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING ON CHANGING WOMEN'S DECISION BASED ON THE TRANSTHEORETICAL MODEL

Breast cancer is considered as a serious health concern worldwide. The early diagnosis of this disease plays an important role in reducing mortality and morbidity rates. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the role of motivational interviewing on changing women's mammography behavior in 2017.

The study population was selected using simple random sampling and then the subjects were assigned into two groups of intervention and control. The motivational interview was conducted in 5 sessions (one hour in each session) once a week for the intervention group. The control group received no intervention. Both groups filled out the demographic and the stages of change questionnaire before and two months after the intervention.

In the interview group, no significant differences were observed in the pre-contemplation and action stage prior and two months after intervention (p= 0.333, and 0.219, respectively). However, after two months, significant differences were observed in contemplation and maintenance stage in intervention group (p= 0.006, and 0.035, respectively). In the control group, most of the women were in contemplation (24%) and maintenance (32%) stages prior to the intervention. Nevertheless, there were no statically significant differences in any stages before and two months after intervention in the control group (p>0.05).

It seems that motivational interview based on the stages of change model was effective in promoting mammography behavior of women. Moreover, counseling based on this model could lead to the promotion of screening behaviors in women.