[The use of focal groups as qualitative method in health promotion]

The present work aims at demonstrating the importance of application of a quality research technique for health awareness. Such technique, called focus group, can be widely applied because of its low cost and also because it enables a fast diagnosis. Use complement information supplied by the community, know attitudes, points of view, perceptions and behaviors related to health, in order to develop programs and evaluates audiovisual tools. The application of this methodology has proven very effective for diagnoses and events on Health Awareness, according to experiments already carried out by the authors, which will be reported.