A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Family Mediation With and Without Motivational Interviewing

Family mediation is a widely used approach to assist separated parents to resolve conflicts about parenting arrangements for their children, yet frequently parents undertaking mediation do not reach a mutually agreeable resolution. In Australia, where the current study was conducted, separated parents must attempt family mediation before they can seek to appear in the family court for custody issues. We compared mediation enhanced with motivational interviewing (MI) with mediation as usual (MAU) in a randomized controlled trial. One hundred and seventy-seven separated-parent dyads were recruited from a community-based telephone mediation service, and randomized to receive MI or MAU. Outcome of mediation was classified as no agreement, partial agreement on some of the areas in dispute, and full agreement. We assessed parental psychological distress, emotional attachment to former partner by the coparent, child adjustment, and coparental conflict before and after the mediation, and at 3-month follow-up. MI had double the rate of full agreements of MAU (33% vs. 16%), and a lower rate of no agreement than MAU parents (33% vs. 42%). Psychological distress, coparental conflict and attachment to the former partner declined from pre-to postmediation in both conditions, but child adjustment was unchanged. There was no difference between MAU and MI on any of these outcomes. MI enhanced achievement of agreements but did not enhance other outcomes. Conducting the study in a busy community mediation service created some challenges that compromised implementation of the study which might influence the reliability of findings. However, the possibility that MI enhances agreement in mediation warrants further investigation.