Abstract

OBRADORS-RIAL, N.  and  SEGURA-BENEDICTO, A.. The public health in the universities of medicine and schools of nursing in Catalonia: The students view. Educ. méd. [online]. 2010, vol.13, n.2, pp.113-122. ISSN 1575-1813.

Introduction. The influence that the education in universities can have on the future of the professional practice in public health (PH) it's unknown. Because of the peripheral position of public health in the health system, this study aims to know the importance of public health knowledge area in the health sciences degrees, and the perception of the students from the latest grades. Subjects and methods. The study has two parts. The first one describes the educational offer of the subjects from the public health knowledge area. The second one, using a questionnaire, shows the evaluation of those subjects from 361 students of medicine and nursing. Results. Ten of the twelve health sciences degrees taking place in nine Catalan universities, offer subjects of the public health knowledge area, from 3 credits (CTA UB) to 32.5 (community nursing UdL). The students don't have the correct perception of the concept of public health. The evaluation of the nursing students is systematically better than the medicine one. The intentions of the medicine students to work as a public health professional are really poor. Conclusion. Being a first approach, limited to a convenience sample, the findings of the study have to be interpreted carefully, even thought, they don't permit to rule out the hypothesis that the subjects of the public health know-ledge area, don't encourage students to think in the future of the professional public health practice as a fact.

Keywords : Medicine students; Nursing students; Public health; Universities.

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