A participatory process for developing quality assurance tools for health education programs

There is a constant need to find methods and tools for achieving high quality in health education and health promotion programs. The aim of this initiative was to develop standards and criteria for quality assessment of health education programs. Health educators participated in a process to develop these standards and criteria. A consensus was reached regarding the list of standards by participation of the health educators in two workshops. This list consisted of the three main stages of health education programs: planning, implementation and evaluation. Operational criteria for each standard were developed in order to be able to measure the standards. Four different subjects were chosen for the development of the criteria: menopause, smoking cessation, cardiac rehabilitation and prenatal care. A consensus regarding these criteria was reached by discussions in workshops. The tools developed were tested by interviewing health educators who were planning and running these programs. The tools built were found acceptable by the health educators as they provided information on the quality of the programs.