Participation levels in local clinical audit: a pilot study comparison between health care professionals

The aims were to evaluate the impact of clinical audit on health professionals' clinical practice by measuring baseline participation levels for comparison with future studies of audit activity in Scottish health service trusts. A survey questionnaire on audit participation in the last year was distributed to a random sample of health professionals from an acute trust in central Scotland. The response rate was 73%. • Overall, 28.8% of respondents had some participation in uniprofessional audit and 23.1%. had some participation in multiprofessional audit. • A greater percentage of doctors participated compared with other professions. • The lowest levels of participation were among professions allied to medicine. • Participants are not normally involved in all the audit stages of a project. • The most usual type of involvement was in collecting data. • The most commonly mentioned benefits of audit were the educational ones. • Educational benefits were most highly valued by health professionals. • Participation in clinical audit projects in this 12‐month period was higher for uniprofessional than for multiprofessional audit. However 70‐80% of health professionals did not participate.