ABSTRACT
The health care model based on the Family Health Strategy, created in the early 1990s, encouraged changes in health education, highlighting the need to create lato and stricto sensu postgraduate courses aimed at empowering professionals that foster comprehensive health care. Periodic evaluations are carried out and encouraged by Capes/MEC in order to maintain the quality of postgraduate courses, but evaluations of recently-introduced professional master’s degree courses in family health remain scarce.
Objectives
To describe the academic profile, contribution, motivations and expectations of graduates of a Professional Master’s in Family Health.
Method
Cross-sectional and quantitative study to analyze the results of 102 questionnaires answered by graduates of the Professional Master’s Degree in Family Health of the Estácio de Sá University (RJ), who had concluded the course between 2007 and 2012. The instrument consisted of open-ended and closed-ended questions, sent by e-mail and made available online through the electronic platform Survey Monkey. The study evaluated age, gender, regional origin, academic background, as well as the contributions, expectations and motivations related to the course.
Results
The survey sample was formed predominantly by female graduates, aged over 30, from 13 Brazilian states and, mainly from Medicine and Nursing courses. The contribution of the master’s degree to the graduate’s professional life was evaluated as excellent by 77% of the interviewees. The expectations regarding the course were positively evaluated and the main reasons for seeking the qualification were scientific-technical improvement and personal satisfaction, rather than better salaries or job stability.
Conclusion
The course was evaluated positively by the graduates, having exceeded their expectations and satisfied the interests that led them to it, thus producing changes to their personal and professional life. A longitudinal analysis of the impact of the professional master’s degree in the career of graduates will require a sequence of similar studies, as has been stimulated by Capes/MEC in recent years.
Medical Education; Public Health; Educational Measurements; Evaluation; Family Health