[Use of the focus group as evaluation tool of a health education program]. / Uso de grupo focal como instrumento de avaliação de programa educacional em saúde.

The objective of this study was to identify the possibilities and limitations of the focal group as a tool to evaluation through a case study of a health educational training process. Among the conclusions we emphasize: the maintenance of the same group turns possible to compare results of the groups accomplished before and after the training; the focal group was adequate to reveal the nature of the training deficiencies since it had permitted to analyze the complexity inherent to both the drug field and the training objectives that seek for cultural and affective changes and not only for cognitive changes.