[Focus groups: preliminary experiences in educational health programs in Brazil]

Since 1989, the public health education section of the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, has been using the focus group technique to identify educational problems and evaluate programs being developed. The focus group is a research technique that allows qualitative data to be collected through group sessions involving 6 to 15 persons with some shared trait (for example, sex, age, occupation, role in the community). The group discusses various aspects of a specified subject. This paper describes five research projects in which this technique was used. The projects were carried out by professors in the School of Public Health/USP in the state of São Paulo between 1989 and 1992 with population groups and in health institutions. These experiences showed that the technique is efficient, permitting rapid identification and in-depth analysis of problems from the point of view of the population. Among the drawbacks to the technique is that it uses a small and nonrandom sample, which means that in certain cases focus groups should be considered a complement to quantitative studies. The data described here provide knowledge of perceptions, ideas, opinions, expectations, and social images-in short, the cultural and verbal universe of the population. With this information, educators and administrators can plan and evaluate education programs on the basis of the needs and views of the people they serve, putting into practice the plan to make education more democratic and responsive to the needs of its public.