A formação profissional do enfermeiro: avanços e desafios para a sua atuação na atenção primária à saúde

Abstract

This study aimed to understand the perceptions of nurses about their professionaldevelopment process to work in primary health care, through a case study of qualitativeapproach. The subjects were nurses of both sexes who worked more than one year inFamily Health Teams of 21 Basic Health Units of Belo Horizonte city in agreements with theNursing School of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, by the Reorientation Program forHealth Professional Formation. In the data collection, the subjects answered twoquestionnaires in their workplace, during the months of January and February 2009. The firstquestionnaire contained questions on socio-demographic profile and professional formationcharacteristics of the nurses. The second questionnaire was answered by the subjectsthrough the face to face interviews, using a semi-structured form with closed and openquestions. Regarding the data analysis, it is emphasized that the questionnaires on sociodemographicprofile and professional formation characteristics of the nurses were computedwith the Epi-Info Program (version 3.2.2). The results showed that there was apredominance of female nurses aged 20 to 39 years. Most of the subjects finished thegraduate degree in nursing from 6 to 15 years, studied in public universities and did notconsidered themselves able to work in primary care after graduation. Regarding the work atthis level of attention, 40% of nurses worked fewer than 6 years in this area, and 35%worked more than 10 years. It was identified that the almost of the nurses workedexclusively in on employment, with weekly workload of up to 40 hours. Respect to thefacilities during the professional formation period to work in primary care, nurses haveidentified the following issues: to study in public universities, to have the technical course innursing, to work with experienced professionals in the moment of insertion in the first level ofattention, the teaching strategy of training in this area, and the presence of experiencedteachers in Public Health. The difficult aspects evidenced were: the nurse lack of Knowledgeafter graduation. On the professional career of the nurses in primary care were highlightedthe following aspects: the choice of this area occurred through previous contact with thecontents of Public Health during the graduation; they considered essential to like to work inthis level of health care; the professional have to update its knowledge continuously. TheseRegarding the skills to work in the first level of care, the subjects defined as fundamental tohave a qualified listening, teamwork, to domain the knowledge in Public Health, and toupdate the Knowledge continuously. These skills were in accordance with those required bythe National Curriculum Guidelines to nurse formation in graduate nursing courses. Thus, itis understood that the nurses at this level of health care envision a professional able to actwith knowledge that will allow them to recognize the relationship of their work on populationhealth as well as to be able to understand the human nature in its dimensions, expressionsand phases.