Evaluating the impact of Environmental Quality Indicators on the degree of humanization in healing environments

Abstract

During the last 2 decades, the effects of the physical and social environment on the healing process, recovery and well-being of patients, families and staff in hospitals have been proved.There is a growing recognition that healthcare architecture could do more by promoting overall wellness, and this requires expanding the focus to healing.The research on evidence-based design (EBD) has demonstrated the power of environmental design,but EDDmost links between design and outcome such as safety and efficiency, while there is a difference between efficient environment and pleasing humanized environment.Humanization is the result of user-centered concept in design. The present study aimed to evaluate the perceived environmental quality indicators thataffect the degree of humanization in hospital design. In this descriptivecross-sectional study, first, the user-centered level of the hospital environment (humanization) was determinedin three selected hospitals in the city of Tehran by two hospital designing and planning experts,and then,with the data collected from patients, staff, and visitors (n=184) the relationship between the variableshas been found. Analysis of the data was performed in SPSS V.19 software using standard tests.The results of the study showed that there was asignificant relationship between the user-centered levels of hospitals and the users' comments on perceived environment quality of a hospital from various aspects. Out of 12 quality indicators, 10 were meaningfullyrelated with the user-centered level of hospitals, and 4 had asignificant relationship with the user type. The results indicated that the group of patients was more sensitive to the changes in environmental quality conditions than other groups of users.