Estágio curricular em unidades de alimentação e nutrição: a visão dos alunos

Abstract

The supervised internship in Food and Nutrition Units (UAN) is a required curricular component for nutrition courses. In spite of this, no studies are found that relate theory to professional practice within these internships, nor that it considers the activities of students during this period of formation. This work aimed to analyze the experiences of nutrition students in their supervised internship at UAN. For each student an online questionnaire with objective and descriptive questions about the internship was sent. The research was submitted to the Research Ethics Committee. For the analysis of the objective results, descriptive statistics were used and, for the descriptive issues, content analysis. Eleven students answered the questionnaire, being 100% female, with average age of 25.2 years and 63.6% singles. With the exception of continuing education, all the skills and abilities present in the national curricular guidelines were necessary at a higher degree than the one possessed before starting the internship. The skills and abilities best developed before beginning the internships were decision-making and continuing education; the least developed were leadership and administration and management. The relationship between theory and practice within UAN contents was considered satisfactory or high for 64% of students; within the course of nutrition this figure reached 73%. The main suggestions for improvements were to insert more practice at UAN area before beginning the internships. This study contributes to the advancement of research in the area of nutrition education, specifically in UAN, because it brings the students' vision of the internships and can help the teachers in the planning of their activities.