Postgraduate activity in primary care nurses on the oral cancer program

Abstract

Background: the development of the teaching-learning processes of the postgraduate level require a consistent systematization that provides innovations from their most urgent needs, especially if they are focused on solving a health problem, such as oral cancer.

Objective: to design a professional development programme for nurses from primary health care basic team on the early detection programme for oral cancer.

Methods: the research was carried out in the health area of the "XX Anniversary" polyclinic in the municipality of Santa Clara, Villa Clara province, Cuba. We worked with a non-probabilistic sample, performed an intentional sampling, from which it was formed by 18 nurses. The study used theoretical and empirical methods.

Results: it is evident that the contents on oral cancer are insufficient in the undergraduate and postgraduate nursing programs, so a professional improvement program with four topics was designed, where team work and group discussions are enhanced. According to the criteria of the specialists consulted, the program meets the didactic and curricular requirements to be applied: it is relevant, affordable, and with a proposal of topics adequately treated from the scientific and methodological point of view, necessary to contribute to raise from the overcoming, the contents related to the subject of study.

Conclusions: a professional improvement program on early detection of oral cancer was designed for nurses of the primary health care basic team.