Scaling the quality of clinical audit projects: A pilot study

Abstract

Objective. To pilot the development of a scale measuring the quality of audit projects through audit project reports. Design. Statements about clinical audit projects were selected from existing instruments, assessing the quality of clinical audit projects, to form a Likert scale. Setting. The audit facilitators were based in Scottish health boards and trusts. Study participants. The participants were audit facilitators known to have over 2 years experience of supporting clinical audit. The response at first test was 11 out of 14 and at the second test it was 27 out of 46. Interventions. The draft scale was tested by 27 audit facilitators who expressed their strength of agreement or disagreement with each statement for three reports. Main outcome measures. Validity was assessed by test-re-test, item-total, and total-global indicator correlations. Results. Of the 20 statements, 15 had satisfactory correlations with scale totals. Scale totals had good correlations with global indicators. Test-re-test correlation was modest. Conclusions. The wide range of responses means further research is needed to measure the consistency of audit facilitators' interpretations, perhaps comparing a trained group with an untrained group. There may be a need for a separate scale for reaudits. Educational impact is distinct from project impact generally. It may be more meaningful to treat the selection of projects and aims, methodology and impact separately as subscales and take a project profiling approach rather than attempting to produce a global quality index.