Objective: To evaluate the impact of motivational interviewing (MI) on the illness perception in patients after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Methods: Totally 160 patients after PCI were randomly divided into two groups. The patients in the control group (n=85) received routine education, while patients in the intervention group (n=75) were received 4 times MI (during hospitalization, before discharge, 1 month after discharge, 3 months after discharge), 20 min for each time. Illness perception was appraised before and after the intervention in both groups. Results: The mean scores of illness perception in the intervention group, including symptom perception, disease perception and cause perception, were 5.85±1.75, 3.65±0.66, 2.85±0.30, which were significantly higher than that of the control group after the intervention, 4.84±1.09, 2.92±0.61, 2.48±0.31, the differences were significantly statistical (t=2.248, 3.717, 3.926, all P<0.05). Conclusions MI is much more effective than routine education on the improvement of illness perception in patients after PCI.