Student Evaluation of Distance Learning for Health Care Professionals.

Background:To meet the population's health needs, it is necessary to have health professionals highly trained and updated with the latest skills. The Brazilian government, through the Open University of Brazilian National Health System (UNA-SUS), offers continuing education with free access, in distance learning (DL) modality.Objective:This study aimed to analyze students' perceptions regarding didactic and pedagogical aspects related to the content and activities, educational resources, and tutoring in a module offered by UNA-SUS/Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA).Methods:The authors analyzed a sample of 319 students, enrolled in four postgraduate classes, who had completed the communicable diseases module, from 2013 to 2014, and responded to evaluation questions through the Integrated Management System (SIGU) questionnaire, an auxiliary system for processing and interpreting assessments of DL modules offered by UNA-SUS/UFMA. For statistical analysis, evaluation variables were dichotomized into either a positive outcome ("great" and "good") or a negative outcome ("bad" and "insufficient"). Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS®; version 18); the significance level was set at 5% (p < 0.05).Results:The authors observed that 99% of the students evaluated the module positively. Regarding the evaluation of the content and activities, 53% (169), 43.6% (139), and 3.4% (11) of students evaluated the item unit workload as great, good, and bad, respectively. The highest rated item was tutor performance, rated as great by 229 (71.8%) students.Conclusions:The results contributed to the improvement of DL courses offered by UNA-SUS/UFMA from the perspectives of controlling dropout rates and the development of public health services offered in Brazil.

The Use of Applications in Distance Education Specialization Course as a Support Tool for Students Living in Remote Areas Without Internet.

The world is experiencing the popularization of mobile devices. This was made possible by the increasing technological advances and the advent of the Internet as a communication and information tool. These facts demonstrate that the development of applications compatible with such devices is an effective way to provide content to diverse audiences. In the educational field, these devices can be seen as technological support artifacts for distance education, serving as strategy for continuous and permanent education for health professionals. The Open University of Brazilian National Health System (UNA-SUS) offers distance learning courses, including specializating on free access. In order to increase the public reach, UNA-SUS developed mobile applications as supporting material for students. These applications can be accessed in offline mode, increasing the accessibility and therefore, improving the efficiency of the material. The 28 applications developed with responsive online books format currently reached the milestone of over 6,000 downloads. This number shows the positive acceptance of the format used, accentuated by the ease of having material downloaded from the device, not requiring the user to be connected to access content.

Observer reliability of three-dimensional cephalometric landmark identification on cone-beam computerized tomography.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate reliability in 3-dimensional (3D) landmark identification using cone-beam computerized tomography (CBCT). STUDY DESIGN: Twelve presurgery CBCTs were randomly selected from 159 orthognathic surgery patients. Three observers independently repeated 3 times the identification of 30 landmarks in the sagittal, coronal, and axial slices. A mixed-effects analysis of variance model estimated the intraclass correlations (ICC) and assessed systematic bias. RESULTS: The ICC was >0.9 for 86% of intraobserver assessments and 66% of interobserver assessments. Only 1% of intraobserver and 3% of interobserver coefficients were <0.45. The systematic difference among observers was greater in X and Z than in Y dimensions, but the maximum mean difference was quite small. CONCLUSION: Overall, the intra- and interobserver reliability was excellent. Three-dimensional landmark identification using CBCT can offer consistent and reproducible data if a protocol for operator training and calibration is followed. This is particularly important for landmarks not easily specified in all 3 planes of space.

As alterações radiográficas digitais efetuadas em programas gráficos são identificáveis? / Can manipulations on the digital radiographs using image processing softwares be recognizable?

As radiografias digitais, assim como as radiografias convencionais digitalizadas, podem facilmente ser modificadas por técnicas de processamento de imagens, tais como ajuste de contraste e brilho, realce de bordas, e outras, que contribuem para o aumento do seu potencial diagnóstico. Por outro lado, estas radiografias também podem ser manipuladas pela alteração, adição ou remoção de objetos na imagem. Para testar o potencial para uso fraudulento destas alterações, os autores alteratam uma série de radiografias digitais, utilizando programas de processamento de imagens, e submeteram estas à avaliação de 142 cirurgiões dentistas, que tentaram indentificá-las por meio do preenchimento de um questionário.

Avaliaçäo do controle de qualidade e proteçäo radiológica na cidade do Rio de Janeiro / Evaluation of quality control and radiologic protection in Rio de Janeiro city

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar as etapas da aquisiçäo das radiografias periapicais realizadas pelos cirurgiöes-dentistas da cidade do Rio de Janeiro, visando um controle de qualidade. Elaborou-se um questinonário para verificar aparelhos de raios X, filmes, materiais, técnicas e processamento empregados com 53 profissionais participando da pesquisa. Analisou-se os resultados por meio de tabelas de frequëncia absolutas e relativas. Apesar de algumas respostas satisfatórias, outras merecem atençäo, demonstrando a necessidade de uma maior divulgaçäo das normas atuais