Scegliere tra tecnologia e relazione quando si tratta di assistenza medica: l’effetto di una condizione di ‘emergenza’

[Autom. eng. transl.] Introduction. In addition to ensuring a basic technical-technological competence, more and more healthcare facilities are now aiming to improve the most psychological and relational aspects of medical assistance, starting from the model of care suggested by the concept of 'humanization' (eg Balint, 1957, 1969; Engel, 1977). Both 'technical' and 'relational' skills are fundamental for the complete care of the person and should ideally be present together for a better outcome of the treatment (eg Sapolsky, 1965). But if users were forced to choose, what would they give up, between technological innovation and relational competence, in an emergency situation? Surprisingly, there are no studies on this. Method. To answer this question, 86 participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: half expressed their preferences in terms of medical assistance starting from a situation of 'normality' ("need for assistance for a check-up visit"); the other half starting from an "emergency" situation ("for a sensitive issue"). The participants then responded to 4 conflicting questions, at the ends of a bipolar Likert scale, 'technical-technological skills' vs. 'relational skills' (eg would you prefer to go to a hospital: "with more up-to-date technology but with less welcoming staff" or "with very welcoming staff but with less up-to-date technology"?). Results. In the emergency condition (vs. follow-up visit), the participants tended to systematically renounce a certain degree of relational skills, in favor of more pronounced technical / technological skills, whether these were referred to the hospital in general, t (83 ) = 2.10, p = .020, Cohen's d = .46, whether they referred to the specific abilities of medical personnel, t (84) = 2.03, p = .045, Cohen's d = .44. Conclusions. The experiment documents — for the first time — that, in an emergency situation and in the face of a conflict between technical-technological skills vs. 'relational', the user systematically tends to prefer the former: if there is a risk to health, undoubtedly the technology is better than the relationship.