diff --git a/sphinx/writers/html.py b/sphinx/writers/html.py
index d633f07e8..e9a31a848 100644
--- a/sphinx/writers/html.py
+++ b/sphinx/writers/html.py
@@ -415,7 +415,7 @@ class HTMLTranslator(SphinxTranslator, BaseTranslator):
     # overwritten
     def visit_title(self, node: Element) -> None:
         if isinstance(node.parent, addnodes.compact_paragraph) and node.parent.get('toctree'):
-            self.body.append(self.starttag(node, 'p', '', CLASS='caption'))
+            self.body.append(self.starttag(node, 'p', '', CLASS='caption', ROLE='heading'))
             self.body.append('<span class="caption-text">')
             self.context.append('</span></p>\n')
         else:
diff --git a/sphinx/writers/html5.py b/sphinx/writers/html5.py
index 469642591..5b38b3be2 100644
--- a/sphinx/writers/html5.py
+++ b/sphinx/writers/html5.py
@@ -366,7 +366,7 @@ class HTML5Translator(SphinxTranslator, BaseTranslator):
     # overwritten
     def visit_title(self, node: Element) -> None:
         if isinstance(node.parent, addnodes.compact_paragraph) and node.parent.get('toctree'):
-            self.body.append(self.starttag(node, 'p', '', CLASS='caption'))
+            self.body.append(self.starttag(node, 'p', '', CLASS='caption', ROLE='heading'))
             self.body.append('<span class="caption-text">')
             self.context.append('</span></p>\n')
         else: