Admission of alumni from Multiprofessional Residency Programs into the SUS

The Multiprofessional Health Residency Programs (PRMS) were set up as a strategy for training workforce for the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS).

To investigate the proportion of alumni from Primary Health Care Multiprofessional Residency Programs admitted into the SUS and associated factors.

This is a sectional study developed with alumni from Primary Health Care Multiprofessional Residency Programs from all over Brazil, encompassing the period from 2015 to 2019. Participants answered an online questionnaire with general personal information, admission into stricto sensu graduate school, the labor market and, specifically, the SUS. We applied Pearson's chi-square test for bivariate analyses and Poisson's regression for multiple analysis.

A total of 365 alumni from Programs from all Brazilian regions participated in the study. Of those, 80.2% reported entry into the labor market and 47.9% reported being employed in the SUS. Admission into the SUS has been associated with the professions that make up the Reference Team for Primary Health Care (PHC) (PR = 1.87; 95% CI 1.54-2.28) and non-admission into stricto sensu graduate programs (PR = 0.77; 95% CI 0.61-0.97). Regarding admission characteristics, the PHC scenario (47.4%) and work focused on health care (84.9%) were prevalent. Almost 40% of alumni who entered the SUS are working with unstable contracts. Besides, being a residency alumnus is often undervalued in recruitment (56.9%). Among those admitted into the SUS, 8.7% reported being selected to work in the Covid-19 pandemic effort.

The results of this study reinforce the need for a policy to encourage the maintenance, creation and valorization of the PRMS. They also warn about the possibility that admission into the SUS for workers is increasingly difficult due to the current underfunding of the health system.