Educação interprofissional na Universidade Federal de Alagoas: oportunidades e disponibilidade dos estudantes dos cursos de saúde

Abstract

Health needs and problems are increasingly dynamic and complex, which poses new challenges for health workers, and consequently, in the training of these professionals. Interprofessional Education in Health (IPE) has been standing out in the Brazilian scenario by contributing to the qualification of health professionals and the training of students from the most diverse graduations of promoting a health system capable of providing the necessary responses and ensuring better health care. Thus, this study aimed to identify the curricular experiences of IPE in health courses at the Federal University of Alagoas and to assess the availability of these students for shared learning. This a cross-sectional observational study carried out with graduates of health courses at UFAL duly enrolled in the last semester of 2020.2. Data was collected through the online platform Google Forms (Google LLC, Mountain View, California, USA), applying the validated and expanded version for Portuguese of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS). The responses were evaluated using the Rstudio software, version 4.1. 50 undergraduates proposed to participate in the study, in which 80% indicated that among the experiences of IPE in their undergraduate course, they participated in research projects with students/professionals from other health courses. The answers to the RIPLS items showed means above ‘4 – I agree’ for two of the scale’s factors, being 4.45 for Factor 1 (Teamwork) and 4.55 for Factor 3 (Patient-centered health care). There was no significant difference between courses for any of the three RIPLS factors. There was also no significant difference between the RIPLS factors related to the variables: gender and age, as well as the various extension, research and extracurricular activities. Only the variable of curricular internships showed statistical significance (p<0.05) in Factor 3, indicating a difference between the groups of students who participated only with students from the same course, and the group of those who participated together with students/professionals from other courses with or without collaborative practices. In this way, graduates of UFAL's health courses are available for shared learning, and that during graduation they have contact with some experiences that they see focused on interprofessionalism. However, these experiences are not mandatory in the curriculum of the courses, and it is necessary to expand the discussions about the EIP through the exposure of the positive results that this strategy has promoted.