Abstract:

An expanded health education includes public policy, appropriate environments and reorientation of services beyond clinical and curative treatments. The distance education is a tool for educational practice and strategy for training of professionals working in the Brazilian National Health System (SUS). To this end, arises the Open University of the Brazilian National Health System (UNA-SUS). It is a program created by Brazilian Ministry of Health to work in collaboration with Public Universities of the country to meet the need for continuing education of health professionals linked to SUS. UNA-SUS/UFMA is linked to the Federal University of Maranhão, in northeast Brazil, and offers free specialization, training, upgrading and extension courses, for SUS professionals, in e-learning mode. Given the need for evaluation of technical- pedagogical work methodology and in order to analyze the perceptions of students about the courses offered, UNA-SUS/UFMA developed a tool called SiGU Questionnaire, a system that assists in the processing and interpretation of data collected for the evaluation the modules of the courses. Thus, this study analyzed data collected by SiGU Questionnaire regarding the didactic and pedagogical aspects of the module “Introduction to Distance Learning”, offered to the third class of the Primary Care course, which had 332 students. The sample consisted of 173 subjects that were enrolled, completed the module in study and answered the evaluative questions through SiGU Questionnaire. When analyzing the data collected, we found that 99.4% of students evaluated the module generally as “good” (52.6%) and “great” (46.82%). Concerning the item “assessment of didactic-pedagogic aspects”, the best evaluated was the “participation of the tutor in the conduct of activities” (great = 70.5%). The results represent a positive feedback to UNA-SUS/UFMA, demonstrating the importance of carrying out a continuous monitoring of the service offered and mainly to know the opinion of the student, who is the user of this service. This feedback is essential to maintain quality and promote improvements in distance education courses offered, since they will directly impact on the Brazilian public health.

Keywords:

Distance Education, UNA-SUS, Feedback, Health Education.