The development of evidence based guidelines for clinical practice portfolios

SummaryAimsAlthough the use of portfolios is widespread within healthcare education, agreement on their purpose, content, assessment and value is still debated. The objective of this study was to achieve consensus on quality criteria for clinical practice portfolios that would act as guidance for students and lecturers.MethodsA Delphi survey was undertaken to seek consensus on the opinions of 23 ‘expert participants’ through a series of rounds of structured questionnaires. The Delphi tool was produced as an on-line survey questionnaire and panel experts were invited to score statements using a discrete 7 point visual analogue scale. The statements were written as quality criteria relating to portfolio development which had been identified from the literature and by the research team. The survey employed three rounds of feedback and consensus was measured as 80% agreement for each quality criteria scoring 5 and above.ResultsConsensus was reached on 31 quality criteria which were categorised into 4 areas: structured collection of labelled evidence; nature of evidence; critical reflection; and assessment and judgement. Mean scores for the final wording of the quality criteria ranged from 5.3 to 6.8 with the standard deviation for all of the mean scores being below 1.5. There was consensus that these quality criteria were relevant to health and social care professionals involved in developing clinical practice portfolios.ConclusionsThe Delphi process facilitated exchange of ideas amongst panel ‘experts’ about the content and evaluation of clinical practice portfolios, with most debate relating to judgement of competence and rewarding originality and creativity. These issues illustrate the tensions between educational values and professional constraints. The Delphi process proved to be an effective method for achieving consensus on quality criteria for clinical practice portfolios and enabled the development of validated guidelines.