INTERPROFESSIONAL HEALTH EDUCATION IN THE EXPERIENCE OF THE EDUCAR PARA PREVENIR EXTENSION PROJECT HEALTH OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

This article aimed to analyze the perception of undergraduate health students regarding the contributions of the extension project Educar para Prevenir: Saúde da Criança e do Adolescente (Educating to Prevent: Child and Adolescent Health) to their academic education and to the development of interprofessional competencies. This is a quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional field study carried out at a Higher Education Institution located in the Southern Region of Brazil, with 27 students from different health programs who worked on the project between 2022 and 2025, promoting health education for children and adolescents in a school setting. Data were collected through an electronic questionnaire structured into characterization blocks, a Likert scale (1 to 5), and one open-ended question, submitted to quantitative analysis. The results showed agreement ranging from 88.9% to 100% in items related to general academic education and from 77.8% to 100% in items specific to interprofessional practice, with no relevant difference between the two blocks. The descriptive analysis reinforced this finding, revealing categories such as the development of interprofessional competencies and the appreciation of the bond with the school community. It is concluded that the experience of health education with children and adolescents, even without an explicitly interprofessional curricular design, functioned as an equivalent space for Interprofessional Education (IPE), contributing consistently to both academic education and the development of collaborative competencies in health.