Impacto da introdução de mídia eletrônica num curso de patologia geral / Impact of the introduction of electronic media in a general pathology course

Aim: To evaluate the modifications implemented in a General Pathology (GP) course, seeking to motivate self-instruction of the students through electronic resources. Methods: Students of the Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saude Publica were requested to answer a questionnaire in order to evaluate the modifications implemented in this discipline, specially the use of a CD-ROM elaborated and distributed in the course. Results: 288 students participated in the study. The mean importance given to the CD-ROM was of 8.45 ± 1.79, in a scale from 0 to 10. It was also the main study source for the practical evaluation, used by 97.2% of the students. The students who used the CD-ROM got low scores - considered inferior to 6.0 (39.9% x 87.5%, P = 0.010) - less frequently, and reported to be able of identifying the general pathologic processes more frequently (99.3% x 87.5%, P = 0.012) than the students that did not use this method. 95.8% of the students thought that the course improved their capacity to recognize tissues or organs under the microscope. Conclusions: The CD-ROM offers resources that can facilitate the teaching-learning process, representing an alternative for the integrated teaching of GP.