How do I know it's health promotion? A study of health promotion activities and awareness in student placements

Abstract

Bridging the gap between the theory and practice of health promotion on student placements is a challenge. Recent policy documents and the National Occupational Standards for professional activity have highlighted the need to provide training for health professionals in this area. This paper draws on a study to investigate students’, lecturers’ and clinical staff's understanding of the practice of, and education for, health promotion, and their perception of how clinical competence is achieved in this domain. Questionnaire findings revealed that students and newly qualified staff displayed a narrow perception of health promotion, despite a wider definition that now pervades theoretical teaching. Students benefited from health promotion sessions in the university and used much of this information to promote their own and their family's health. The use of more open and qualitative techniques (focus groups and semi-structured interviews) and prompting through amplification of the term health promotion induced students to realize that they were in fact practising a wider definition. Findings indicate that students would welcome the opportunity to extend their health promotion practice. Furthermore, the data suggested that articulation by clinicians of their health promotion practice, together with discussion and reflection, would help students and staff embed knowledge into practice. Visible parts of health promotion, such as advice on smoking cessation, were easier to articulate and put into practice than were the less tangible aspects, such as tackling inequalities. Lack of time and poor staffing levels constrained the ability of supervisors and students to discuss and reflect on health promotion theory and practice. However, opportunities, especially in the community, were more frequently pinpointed as learning experiences compared with the acute sector. Use of the National Occupational Standards was seen as a way to develop curricula, while active mentoring was identified as a means of evaluating and enhancing health promotion activities in the clinical learning environment.