68 resultados para Trabalho profissional - Aspectos morais e eticos
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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
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Dos problemas de saúde existentes no ambiente de trabalho, 18% afetam o aparelho psíquico, a exemplo do estresse, atingindo cerca de 30% dos trabalhadores em geral. A persistência e intensidade do estresse, associada às sucessivas tentativas de lidar com os mesmos, tornam os indivíduos vulneráveis ao surgimento da Síndrome deBurnout. O objetivo deste trabalho foi identificar a relação dos aspectos socioeconômicos e demográficos com o estresse e a Síndrome de Burnout em fisioterapeutas do Brasil. Para isso, este estudo teve uma abordagem do tipo transversal, com 1040 fisioterapeutas do Brasil, através de uma amostragem do tipo snowbolle não probabilística. Utilizou-se um questionário socioeconômico, demográfico e profissional, a Escala de Estresse no Trabalho (EET) e a adaptação do Cuestionario para la Evaluación del Síndrome de Quemarse por el Trabajo (CESQT). Na análise dos dados, foram utilizadas a estatística descritiva e inferencial. Dentre os principais resultados obtidos, percebeu-se uma maior representatividade da região Nordeste (48,7%), com idade média de 31anos, sexo feminino (75,7%), carga horária semanal de 35,4 horas, com 3-5 anos de atuação profissional. Observou-se que 37,0% apresentavam estresse relacionado estatisticamente com a idade (p=0,008),atividade física (p=0,039) e satisfação com a saúde (r=-0,322; p<0,001). Não foi observado nenhum caso de Burnout, porém houve uma média elevada nas dimensões, desgaste psíquico, indolência e culpa, totalizando 49,0% comtendência ao desenvolvimento da síndrome. Portanto, as variáveis, idade, prática da atividade física e satisfação com a saúde obtiveramrelação com o estresse. Para o Burnout, destacaram-se a região de moradia (centro-oeste), satisfação com a saúde, local de trabalho (clínicas e hospitais), além do maior número de locais de trabalho. Diante desse contexto, os estudos sobre o estresse e a Síndrome de Burnout se apresentam como elementos derelevância dentro do contexto da prevenção dos riscos laborais e da análise das condições de trabalho
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The aim of the present study was to identify the representational elements of workrelated accidents in the health field, as well as investigate their most frequent occurrences at a university hospital, seeking to understand the cognitive, affective and social elements subjacent to the work process involved in health. The analysis focused on 470 middle and senior support staff of this hospital, based on the theoretical-methodological support of the Social Representations Theory. A combination of the following instruments was used for data collection: a free wordassociation test, a questionnaire, an interview and a field journal. Evoc 2000 software was used to identify representational structure. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests, at a significance level of 5%, were performed to verify the association between the independent variables and the occurrence of work accidents. In addition, thematic content analysis and lexicographic analysis by ALCESTE software program were used to understand textual content. It was observed that social representations of work-related accidents in the health area are centered in the contamination category, while the categories of prevention and professional unpreparedness are found peripherally. There was a significant association between the existence of multiple employment, the use of personal protective equipment (PPI) during work, job satisfaction and the occurrence of work accidents. The conclusions indicate that perforating-cutting occupational accidents predominated in the hospital and that the representations of the subjects intertwined, with a traditional discourse of work accidents strongly present in Occupational Health. It is therefore suggested that certain subjective aspects related to culture, in terms of controlling work accidents, such as: management, process, organization and the increasing precariousness
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The Theory analyzes what should know and what competes, formally, to the Professional of Social Service to act in the School Education. He/she investigates, starting from studies on the theme, and close to Council Federal and Regional of Social Service, and of the Brazilian Association of Studies and Researches in Social Service, that you know and competences are necessary for the social worker performance in that specific area. Through a research of nature empiric, bibliographical and documental, the analysis focus outlines the glance and the understanding of the professionals' category that represent the defense organs, fiscalization and formation of the profession. The importance of the scientific study is justified for the social worker necessary contribution acting in the School Education, whose political and pedagogic context presents multiple demands, you know and relationships, and when it is lived a social and education picture at the present time with order words in formation, as inclusion, empowerment, competence, that they demand other specialists in the school scenery to work with the varied expressions of the social subject. Since the years 1930 the social worker acts in the area of the Education, with an originating from knowledge the human and social areas that you/he/she makes possible him/it to contribute, undisciplinement, close to the pedagogic team of the School Education. The clarity of the you know and of the necessary competences to intervene in that field of specific work makes possible the legitimation of the identity, of the social worker professionalization and the formalization of his/her practice. The Theory ends that the profissionality and the social worker professionalism is built and it is recognized in the area of the Education starting from the knowledge of the you know and pertinent competences to intervene in that context, beginning that knowledge on the part of the category of the Social Service and of the formation organs and representation of the profession so that the school community - administration and pedagogic coordination, teachers and students - he understands and recognize the social worker necessary intervention in that field. The formalization of those you know and competences are built starting from actions and thought mobilizations and operation in the group of the category, and not for isolated actions and individualized. It is revealed, in the opinion of the ones that represent Regional Council of Social Service, a wide vision of the social worker in that space exercising, among other, functions that don't compete to the professional's profile or restricted to actions and techniques historically exercised in their work fields. A new profile of the professional of the Social Service that it acts in the School Education is possible when his/her action is visualized centered not just in the work with the family, but, doing of the school a proposition space and execution of programs, projects, studies and social researches. He intends, an action politics and of popularization on them know and the social worker competences in the School Education
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This work studies the thematic of the politics of formation of teachers in the Program of Professional Qualification for Basic Education (PROBÁSICA) developed in the City of Parnamirim, Rio Grande do Norte. It has as its main objective to identify and to analyze the contribution of this politics of initial formation for the professional formation of teachers. To install the work, we will use the procedures of bibliographical research, documentary analysis, comment, structuralized interview, questionnaire-script and virtual research. In the analysis of the data, we trace a general view on PROBÁSICA while initial formation along with the continued formation, pedagogical research, collaborative research and the exercise of the teaching profession, identifying the possibilities and limits of the Program in the direction to reach the objective considered in this work. From the inquiry, we construct the institutional land scope of the program in question, also focusing, the organizational aspects of its functioning. We have to take care about the results, we evidence that PROBÁSICA is making the possible to access of the teachers in the educational service to the University, what the main aspect that consists, trying to prove eminent weak points in its systematic due to give to the organizational structure of this educational politics that does not count with curricular, institutional and financial the necessary conditions for the success of the professional formation of the teachers. The research will try to understand that the operationalization of the politics of formation in Parnamirim will be belong with it the main idea of the Educational Reformation in years of 1990, articulated to the neoliberal interests, that the responsibility for the problems of the public system of education attributed to the teachers, and that are not answered completely through the purpose of the professional formation, and ti seems that it does not define one global national politics that deals with seriousness to the questions the initial formation, permanent formation, pedagogical research, , career and conditions of work for the teachers
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It aims to consider the possible relationship between formal school education and work, from the experience of the State School House of the Minor Worker CMT of Natal-RN in this first decade of the 21st century. In this institution, children and adolescents are enrolled in the Fundamental Teaching sponsored by the State Public System studying the regular curriculum contents defined for this level of teaching, and in the opposite shift they take part in career workshops which are kept by members of a religious congregation. CMT has had as its object, since its foundation, to take children and adolescents from the streets and to provide them with a full time education associating basic education and training/qualification for the job market. In our research, we tried to learn a little bit of the expectations, concerns and knowledge of the young participants of two workshops: carpentry and bakery, so that we could gain sufficient understanding of the learning process of these youths, while still keeping an approximation with the reality of the aforementioned subjects. It was possible for us to conduct a description of the contexts and of characteristics of the subjects which make up CMT, capturing concrete aspects and aspects of the thoughts of students, teachers, instructors and coordinators. The main point of our research was: how does the approximation between formal school education and work take place in the House of the Minor Worker? To search for possible answers we have made use of basic techniques for the data construction - questionnaire, observation, conversation groups, assessment drills which allowed an approximation and a good dialogue with the participants. We also discussed the job world in the context of the capitalist exploration, from the contributions of Mèszáros (2005), Frigotto (1989); (1993); (1999); (2002); Ferretti (1994); (2004); Kuenzer (1989); (1997), in order to understand the skills demanded of the worker and the necessity of an education which allows the professional qualification of youths eager to enter the job market, through the first job. In this perspective, the study that we have systematized here aims to show the relevance of an education which manages to take a firm and conscientious stand in connection with the hegemonic capitalist project and to provide for a humane, ethical, responsible, critical and civic background
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Analyze the work of the school manager who now faces the changes experienced in school management for the last two decades. We propose that there have been changes in school management that have generated a larger number of activities to be developed by managers, causing both the intensification of work and a greater involvement of professionals in the financial-administrative dimension of their work in opposition to the political and pedagogical dimension. This study has a historic-critic approach. That is why we performed semi-structured interviews with school managers of the city schools in Natal RN, BR as a methodological procedure. We also analyzed the literature as well as the documentation relevant to this subject. From the study it was possible to conclude that changes in the field of school management and also teaching have led to an intensification of work of school managers and that such changes have not been followed by corresponding improvement in working conditions and teaching career of these professionals. They, as a rule, are considered by controlling agencies and by the school community as the primarily responsible for the school condition and for creating actions or projects that may improve the institutional objectives and results, including even the maintenance of the institution. Moreover, the growing number of administrative activities represents for obvious reasons extra work for these managers, who, when trying to cope with the growing bureaucratic situations, end up misplacing other political and educational aspects of school work, which may undermine the final purpose of school itself. We stress that we must broaden the discussions on the functions of the school manager, so that this worker can actualize a pedagogical project more committed to an emancipatory nature, despite all the challenge in keeping the school running in often-precarious conditions
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This work is a research about the policy of initial education of teachers made by the federal government, in the Brazilian educational view in the 1990 s. It is based on that the procedures to the initial education of teachers are in a much bigger context of the productive rearrangement and of the reconstruction of the State and they have in the international institutions, like the CEPAL, UNESCO and the World Bank, their main mediators. The dissertation aims to analyze the implementation of the policy of initial education of educators, having as empirical field the CEFET RN institution, and as reference the undergraduate course of Geography, more specifically the subject vocational practice. This study is advised by the theoretical and methodological fundamentals of the qualitative research, and it is being characterized by a case study. Among the methodological procedures which were used, some of them can be pointed out such as, the bibliographic research, the documental analysis, the application of questionnaires and the carrying out of interviews. The studies show up CEFETs and the Superior Education Institutes were considered by the Brazilian government suitable for the introduction of the initial education of vocational training, related to teaching, a proposed model by updated principles of international organizations. However, in the CEFET RN reality, although the difficulties listed by the teachers and students in the introduction of the subject vocational practice, the initial background in the undergraduate course of Geography got one point which is getting close to the teaching that is carried out in universities, privileging teaching, research and extension. For the people who have participated of researches, the subject vocational practice is relevant for the curriculum of teaching education because it makes the articulation between theory and practice possible, aspects considered essential ones for a teaching education of quality. Also, the studies show that one of the big obstacles faced in the introduction of the subject in question, was the lack of assistance to the students who are in a period of training and in the execution of research and extension projects caused by the insufficiency of educators to perform in the undergraduate course, as well as the lack of time of the teachers due to a large number of activities that they develop in their workplace (CEFET RN). This fact reveals the way how the policy of education of teachers came to educational institutions, imposed by MEC, without considering their structure conditions. Although the difficulties, the innovator character of the experience stood out, as in relation to the locus of education as because of being an educational model which involves theory and practice and the different kinds of knowledge, pretty necessary ones for the teaching education, as well as coming beyond a pragmatic education coherent with the immediate interests of the world of work
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It is in the work environment that occurs the relations of production, economy, personal development and professional growth. Thus, this environment characterizes for being a propitious way to the intellectual development diligent them. In this context, this study it had as objective to analyze the possibilities and challenges of the education to consist integrant part of the process of work of the nursing, in an education hospital. One is about a research of analytical matrix and qualitative boarding, that had as collaborating fifteen professionals of the nursing, middle- and upper-level, of a hospital of education in Natal/RN. It followed the metodológicos estimated ones of the thematic verbal history, which looks for to promote the agreement or clarification of determined situations, catching experiences of made use people to say on aspects of its life, keeping a commitment with the social context. The information then had been gotten by means of a research instrument that made possible the accomplishment of interviews, which had been marked anticipatedly and counted on the assent of that in they had participated. The interviews had been recorded in proper equipment, so that you say them of the collaborators transcribing and they were analyzed with the support of pertinent literature. The content of you say them was classified in empirical categories, as the nuclei of felt that they presented. With the analysis of the data, one evidenced that the education in the process of work of the nursing is something possible to occur, but that diverse they are the challenges that the same one has that to face to promote this phenomenon in its daily one of work. The collaborators had affirmed that the worker is necessary to remain itself permanently in study so that, thus, it grows professionally and improves its assistance. They had still affirmed that she is possible to work and to study, but that this requires determination of who intends such intention. E also guarantees that the diverse forms of education directed toward the care in nursing can have resolution, since that has collective compromising of the institution. This, as education hospital, recognizes to be necessary to possess one politics of education for its workers and is if considering implementation the same one through a structuralized program already. Therefore, the results of this research show the necessity of changes in the current scene where if they find the workers of nursing of the institution in study. These changes can be reached through one politics of investment in the workers, allowing, beyond other benefits, the reach of new knowledge that take them to a significant learning in favor of the population, reflecting in the quality of the given assistance
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Analyzes the factors that unleash violence by banalization of the problems and health questions of workers in a federal public institution, in Natal/RN. It analyzes transformations in the world of the work, with its politic, social and economic determinatives and its relation to the worker health. Boarding the violence in the work enviroment and its implications to the worker health, focusing on the banalization of problems faced by the workers as a kind of violence in and with the work. It was chosen an analitic methodology with qualitative approach, through the collection tecnic and information analyzes according to the thematic oral history, with recorders of authorized personal narratives, through individual interview with a semi-structured guide. In the analyzis of results it were made empiric cathegories: the daily work enviroment and its influence to the worker profession and life; the violence presents in the work enviroment and its consequences to the worker life and health; the banalization of the social injustice, due to violence against the worker that broked their dreams concerned to the nursing contribution. The results revealed the ordinary work of these workers showing enviromental and organizational unhealthy conditions, caracterized by physical and tecnical insecurity; absence and disqualification of instrumental and human supplies; overload and complexity service; bad distribution of the duties and pressure to the deadline and productivity, producing tension, conflict and anxiety related to the users, colleagues, superiors and to the duties. In the work enviroment, it were identified a external violence, caracterized by physical and verbal aggresion, psychic suffering, worker depreciation; and internal, caracterized by: moral and psychological molestations and accupational structural violence. These kinds of violence bring consequences to the life, that is, professional, economic and moral order of factors and to the health by biological, mental and emocional factors. The banalization of social injustice during the daily work was discussed in the aspects of banalization of problems and work conditions, the health, qualification banalizations and professional valorization. The workers expectatives pointed out to the necessity of: secure conditions of work; trainning and tecnical assistance; politics of attention to the physical, mental and social health to the workers and their family. We conclude the enviromental and organizational conditions of the workers interviewed do not offer physical and tecnical security that they need to the execution of their activities, neither offer comfort or physical and psychological satisfactions. The politic the instituition has used points out to the depreciation and inhumanization of them producing feelings as unsatisfaction, frustation and indignation related to the institution and the work, bringing suffering and physical and mental sicking. We noticed the most terrible violence found in the work enviroment is the banalization of social injustice related do the problems and health of these workers, producing a slowly debility and simbolic death of their lifes. Therefore, it is necessary the implementation of a politic that promotes assurance, health and integral education, valorization and humanization of these workers
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Venous ulcer (VU) is a lower limbs injury resulting from inadequate return of venous blood in feet or legs. Although it is not a deadly disease, it causes chronic wounds, which seriously undermine patients´ quality of life (QOL) and sometimes leads to drastic family, social, economic and psychological changes. In this sense, there are several aspects that may influence the venous ulcers patients´ QOL. The study´s objective aimed on the association of socio-demographic and health, health care and clinical injury on UV patients‟ QOL. Analytical studies, which consider the complexity of factors involved in changes in UV patients‟ QOL has a cross-sectional and quantitative approach. The HUOL Ethics Committee approved this project (n.279/09). The collection of data lasted a period of 3 months in 2010 and it took place at the clinic of Angiology at Hospital Universitário Onofre Lopes (HUOL). The data sample consisted of 60 patients treated by UV angiologists in the HUOL Surgical Clinic. The results were analyzed with SPSS 15.0 by descriptive and inferential statistics. The study was based on UV patients that were predominantly female, average age of 61.4 years, that had low education level and low family income, with occupations requiring long periods of standing or sitting, but mostly retired, unemployed or laid off due to the disease and/or due to chronic diseases associated with the UV. The study took also into consideration patients that used inappropriate products, that were improperly treated by a professional caregiver, that lacked of adequate guidance and compression therapy, that performed no lifting of the lower limbs and regular exercise, that the time of injury were greater than or equal to six months, that were missing specific laboratory tests. The study‟s reference were on recurrent lesions, medium to large lesions area, bed of the lesion (injuries) with fibrin and/or necrosis, with amount of exudate with medium to large, odorless and no signs of infection, with tissue loss between 1st and 2nd degree, without collecting swab or biopsy and with pain. In general, QOL of researched individuals were considered low, the maximum score was 69 points, which the areas that were mostly influenced were the total scores of QOL functional capacity (0.021), emotional (0.000) and social functioning (0.080). Of the 60 individuals, 53.3% had scores between 40 and 69 points in SF-36, and they had the best scores in sociodemographic and health variables (ρ = 0.049). In respect to the assistance and injury characteristics, patients who scored between 40 and 69 points in SF-36 had better scores on these characteristics. By combining the socio-demographic variables, health, and handling characteristics of the injury, we observed a significant difference (ρ = 0.032) when linking them with the QOL total scores. When analyzing separately the domains of the SF-36 scores on the quality of life, we find that the areas that showed statistical significance were functional ability (ρ = 0.035), appearance (ρ = 0.019), emotional (ρ = 0.000), and mental health (ρ = 0.050). Among the socio-demographic characteristics studied, gender and marital status contributed more to the reduction of QOL and among the variables of assistance and the injury, orientation, reference and area of UV contributed the most. By analyzing these five variables all together in accordance with the overall score obtained in the quality of life, we found a significant correlation (ρ = 0.002); with 6.23 times more chances of patients have better QOL in the presence of these five positive factors. By conducting the Mann Whitney U test between all the five demographic variables, health, and clinical care, we found that this combination also proved to be significant (ρ = 0.006). Therefore, patients with these five variables positive tend to have a better QOL. Based on these results, we reject the null hypothesis (H0) and accept the alternative hypothesis (H1) proposed in this study because we noted that the QOL of patients with UV is associated with sociodemographic and health, health care and clinical aspects of the injury
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The worker of the public service is loosing your acquisitive power by means of the politics of fiscal settlement. The ways out that were found in the health sector, especially in nursing, is being the increasing workday for beyond 40 or 20 hours established in the link of the work with the state. This survey has the object to identify the possible repercussion of the increasing workday in daily life workers from nursing in the public service of Rio Grande do Norte. The theory reference used was the work of Marx (1982) and Antunes (2000,2001) and the daily living in Heller (1991,1992). The methodology used was a qualitative survey in the exploration kind. The informations were gathered through interviews with open questions almost structured with workers of nursing, managers and representatives of entity. The analysis of informations were made through general categories, work, and daily life, using elements from dialetics-hermeneutics according to Minayo (1992,2002). In the analysis, it was identified that the ways that were found for the overcoming of the loss of acquisitive power were the many-employment; the extra scale of shift; the subletting of work posts and the substitution of friends in scales of work, and all of them being changed in increase. Other aspect realized was the move of rights, like vacation and medical license for the workers that act in extra scale. The tiredness, stress, and bad humor are influents factors in the development of work.. The reduction of free time makes in the workers ahguish because of the familiarity decreasement just as time to dedicate themselves to the technical-scientific improvement and for the cultivation of other aspects of subjectivity, as leisure, care and culture. The low salary and the non reajustment are the reasons for the adoption of part workers for the increasing workday, and government has been responsible for this situation. The conclusion was that the increasing workday has strong repercussions in the professional and personal daily life workers that made part of the survey
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The present study aims to analyze the nurse s work process at Family Health Strategy, considering its basic elements and dynamic, and searching to identify aspects that may constitute strengths and weaknesses in its development. This is an analytical case study, with qualitative approach and theoretical-conceptual mark grounded in Dialectic Hermeneutics. Empirical research fields were the Family Health Units of Natal, RN, Brazil. The subjects are nurses working in this Strategy. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured individual interviews combined with field observation. The research was initiated after approval by the Ethics Committee of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, according to the guidelines and rules for research involving humans (Resolution 466/12), ensuring proper ethical precepts. The project was approved by register number 398.929, CAAE 19588813.7.0000.5537. From the 9 interviewed nurses, 8 were female and 1 male, average age of 52 years, average graduation time of 27 years and average time they stayed at the same Family Health territory of 7 years. It was found that it is up to the professional nurse in the Family Health care the important role of taking care of human beings in their life, family and community contexts, producing conditions to meet their needs through therapeutic act in health, using for such purpose both materials and immaterial instruments. It was possible to relate aspects that characterize strengths and weaknesses in the work process of nurses in the ESF, according to the speech of the interviewed workers, including the meanings and contradictions. Among the potentialities observed, it was possible to highlight the wide role of the nurse at Family Health; the perception of nurses about teamwork; the relative autonomy of nurses; the commitment of professionals to work; Humanization as a technology; the presence of other agents at work, such as directors and officers at the primary health units; the professional s experience time and contract type in the case studied. As weaknesses in the work process of nurses at Family Health Strategy, were highlighted the limited skills of the workforce; the difficulty in 10 identifying specific limits of the work of nurses in this scenario; the disturbances that occur in the process, the existing gaps in multiprofessional teams; Structural deficits of the units in the studied case, the low coverage of the Family Health in the county, and the political vulnerability of the work conditions. It is considered necessary to understand the dilemmas experienced in everyday life of nurses at Family Health Strategy as part of multiprofessional teams, facing actual achievement of changes in work processes necessary for the reorientation of health care in Brazil. In accordance, it is necessary to promote proper working conditions and welfare of labor agents which are protagonists the work at the United Health System
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Family Health Strategy (FHS), founded in 1994 has appeared to play a strategic role in the SUS construction and consolidation. It has reaffirmed its Principles and Guidelines and has elected family as core of attention. The principle that has guided the work concerns the quality of the relationship between professional and family. Thus, the FHS has the family as a subject of health-disease process, and relations with its own characteristics and can be partners in building their health and improvement of quality of life of its members and the entire community. This study aims to characterize the surgeon-dentist (SD) working process in the family health strategy, from the knowledge of the SD integration with other team members; organization of services; development of shares, changes perceived by SDs, as well as knowing the surgeon-dentist profile who is part of this strategy. The collecting tool used was a semi-structured questionnaire, in which participated 30 professionals. As for profile, most professionals were women, completed the graduation in public university and did not have any training to work by joining the FHS. Almost all have other public or private working ties. They often carry out activities with students, and occasionally do home visits. In relation to team work, in activities such as home visits, school health, community activities, among others, they sometimes seek the cooperation of other members. The way of accessing for users in the most part has occurred through the schedule. The most frequently activities made to the Centro Especialidades Odontológicas (CEO), are in Endodontics and Prosthesis. The majority of them participate in team meetings, but they do not have frequency set to happen. As for the planning and programming of activities to be conducted, most said that individually develops them. Concerning the performance of their duties, most reported being satisfied, but that improvements could happen. Besides, they reported improvements in dental care following the inclusion of SD in the FHS in various aspects, such as access, organization, humanization, care and oral disease prevention. The professionals had poor integration with other team members, in addition to have a profile to more individualistic work, a fact seized by way of development and planning of actions. They work the actions in individual and curative way, in detriment promotion and collective ones. They work humanization, definition of territory and adscript population. Thus, it is concluded that the working process developed by SDs, includes the part which is advocated by FHS. This points out to a greater undertaking of this process aiming to detect the weakness met in order to reach the potential that the FHS represents in organization of basic attention
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Relations between the meaning attributed to work by first year university students and their academic and professional choice were analyzed. The participants were 921 students, 17-52 years old (M = 22; SD = 4.9), enrolled in 16 courses common to two college level institutions of the city of Natal, RN, one public, the other private. A questionnaire was designed for collecting data about the academic-professional choice, with open-ended and multiple choice questions. Work meaning was obtained by means of two questions on centrality and two scales pertaining to the Inventory of Motivation and Work Meaning: value and descriptive attributes. A socio-demographic set of questions ended the questionnaire. Data was entered in a SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) database, allowing for the pertinent statistical analyses, such as frequency, t test, chi square, factor analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA. Results indicated that the decision about academic-professional career was made by the majority of the participants (in first option, N = 921) without the adequate consideration of the socio-professional reality (80.7%) and personal internal resources (98.5%). When considering the second option (N = 654), only the first criterion was taken into account, but only by 12.5% of the sample. The main difficulties faced by students during the choosing process were, then, made apparent in the data. 46.8% of the participants were unsatisfied with the course they had started and were anticipating unpromising perspectives in relation to it. The first year students took work as the second most important aspect of their lives and demonstrated an idealized vision about it. Five patterns of work meaning were identified. In relation to centrality and the value and descriptive attributes, the university students displayed differentiation in the attribution of work meaning according to course and area of knowledge