Mapping nursing training in Brazil: Challenges for actions in complex and globalized scenarios

Abstract

The article discusses the professional formation of nurses, implications of the increase in the number of Higher Education Institutions and their distribution in Brazil. It considers the results of the Nursing Profile Survey in Brazil, carried out with 35,916 nursing professionals, in 2013. The analysis that characterizes the trajectory of undergraduate nursing in this article is structured in three dimensions: the increase in the number of undergraduate and postgraduate nursing education institutions; the boom in nursing schools and the public vs. private relationship; and the territorial distribution of the registered nurse in Brazil. The increase in the number of Nursing Education Institutions implies an exponential formation, with a predominance of private schools in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The courses seek to align themselves with changes in health and society, but it is crucial to equalize the territorial asymmetries between the undergraduate and graduate training institutions, the overconcentra-tion and care gaps resulting from the insufficiency of nurses per inhabitant, as well as to qualify the nurses for the exercise of their professional activities in the face of global changes.