Humanisation of care pathways: training program evaluation among healthcare professionals

In recent years, medical care has come a long way thanks to technological improvements in diagnostics and treatment. Healthcare providers have developed many new care pathways, improving the organisation of care processes. In this context, the care pathway reduces the patient's choices, and the relationship between the health professional and the patient is less personal; the main drawback of this is that it could lead to dehumanisation of the patient. In 2015, the Local Health Unit of Naples (ASL NA1) set up the "Humanisation" project with the aim of accepting the patient as unique – as a human being – in care pathways. In this paper, we analyse the features of health professionals' satisfaction related to various aspects of a training course for health workers involved in the Humanisation project. We use a recent implementation of classification trees for ordered categorical response variables in order to identify the most relevant determinants of satisfaction. The results show that the main determinants of participants' satisfaction are the professional competence and responsiveness of the teachers, the skills acquired in the training course and increased personal awareness as a perceived outcome. Implications for the implementation of the Humanisation project are discussed.