Authors: IOANNA TSANTILI

Title: IDENTIFICATION OF THE TRAINING NEEDS OF HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS IN GREECE

Abstract

The increasing demand for continuing professional updating and development on health services has created the need to recognize the potentials of training needs. The present study aims to establish the occupational profiles and identify the training needs of the health care professionals employed both in the public and the private sector in Greece.

A psychometrically valid Greek version of the Training Needs Assessment questionnaire, was used, which was administered to 453 participants. The training needs of the health care professionals were examined by using a series of unrelated t-tests and multivariate linear analysis.

Significant training needs were reported for all 30 items of the questionnaire and by all staff. The majority of the health care professionals believe that the organizational development should be a priority in contrast to training course. No significant differences were found between training needs and sex. Eight items were identified being important for the public sector’s workers. The TNA tool could be considered reliable due to Cronbach’s score of >0.6.

The results of this survey suggest that the health care professionals need further training. The study also highlights the importance of training for the workers in the public sector, especially in the domain of research/audit.