Developing an audit tool for health promotion learning opportunities in clinical placements

Education audit has proved to be an effective way of reviewing current acti vities and learning opportunities available to health-care students during clinical placements. Despite the importance attributed to education audit i n highlighting good practice, identifying where there is a need for change as well as providing information for future planning, there is no evidence in the literature to support its specific application to health-promotion l earning opportunities. This paper describes a two-part study in which an ed ucation audit tool for use in evaluating health-promotion learning opportun ities for students in clinical placements was successfully developed. This tool can be utilized by multiple stakeholders in a variety of clinical sett ings. Following a discussion of the background literature, the methodology (which involved the development of a series of dynamic relationships betwee n researchers, commissioners and participants) is described. The aim of thi s article is to discuss the lessons learned from the process of developing the tool, including the problems that were encountered and how they were ad dressed. The authors conclude that their experiences in developing this too l can be usefully transferred to other educational and clinical settings. ( C) 2000 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.