The Correspondence between the Curriculum of Public Health Undergraduate Program and Job Requirements: A Cross-sectional Study

The periodic revision of school curriculum in different courses in every scientific discipline is one of the basic principles of the training process and it improves the quality of education. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the level of correspondence between the basic and specialized courses of Public Health undergraduate program and job requirements. This cross-sectional study was performed on 66 Public Healthinterns/apprentices at Lorestan University of Medical Sciences in 2016. The Sampling was the census. The data
collection instrument was a questionnaire whose validity and reliability have been confirmed in previous studies. The data were analyzed using STATA software and descriptive and analytical statistics. The results showed that the use of specialized and basic courses of Public Health in doing job duties was high and medium respectively. According to the interns, the most practical specialized course was Mother and Child Health and the least practical course was Occupational Health. According to these interns/apprentices, more than 60 % of basic courses and more than 40% of specialized courses offered changed their knowledge and not their attitude and behavior. In both continuous and discontinuous interns/apprentices groups the satisfaction rate of their field of study was average and there was no significant difference between the two groups. According to the interns/apprentices, the correspondence between the curriculum of Public Health undergraduate program and job requirements was average Therefore, it is recommended that the number of active and passive immunization courses be increased. It is also suggested that one internship semester be offered in their education program.