The Restorative Quality Of Patient Ward Environment

As one of the most significant types of healthcare spaces,patient wards have great influence on the physical and mental health of inpatients.With the development of holistic medicine and evidence-based design,more focus has been put on patient-centered design of ward environment.At the same time,the emergence of inpatients’ psychological problems have also attracted much attention.This research,therefore,aims to improve psychological restoration and well-being of inpatients,through the investigation and promotion of ward environment design.Qualitative and quantitative methods were combined in the study.In terms of qualitative research,literature review and grounded theory were adopted in extracting the influential design characteristics on ward environments’ restorative quality.As to quantitative research,questionnaire surveys were used to further explore the characteristics and dimensions of ward environment design that affect inpatients’ restoration.The method of principal component analysis was also adopted to make the factor system of the restorative characteristics.In the test of dominant characteristics,the virtual reality technique was applied,combined with physiological measurements(SC,HR,BR,etc.)to collect the physiological and psychological feedback data of inpatients during their experience of simulated ward environments.The data were analysed with statistical tools to reveal the restorative power of each dominant characteristic.Finally,on the basis of the quantitative results obtained from the analyses,BP neural network and multiple linear regression were used to construct models to predict ward environments’ restorative quality.The results are followed: Firstly,related literature got reviewed,including the theories of medical psychology,restorative environment and potential restorative factors of ward environment.The characteristics and framework of ward restorativeness were therefore identified,through which the theoretical basis of wards’ restorative quality got established.Three dimensions were determined to assess the restorative quality of healthcare environment: ‘Vitality’,‘Reassurance’and ‘Support’,based on which the scale of hospital indoor environment restoration was developed,verified,and revised,as a research tool for the restorative quality of ward environments.Secondly,nineteen influential factors on wards’ restorative quality were extracted.The correlations between environment evaluation and demographics,psychosomatic states,time and spacial differences were further analysed,and it was found that gender,physical condition and illness type had significant influence on inpatients’ assessment of ward environmental characteristics,while there is significant correlation between pleasure level and wards’ restorative quality.The factor system of the restorative characteristics was constructed according to the analysis of 19 influential environmental factors,which determine the importance of each factor on the basis of four dimensions.Thirdly,the restorative quality of six dominant design characteristics was explored,including the impacts of different attributes on stress reduction,emotion change,attention restoration,and comprehensive restoration effect.The results show that the design attributes that could maximize the restorative outcome of ward environment include: window views of an urban landscape with nature,warm colored interior space,simple furniture layout and decoration,relatively spacious space,and direct connection with external spaces through the door.In addition,the research has also determined the relationship between individual factors(education,age,physical states,etc.)and the assessment of ward environments’ restorative quality,as well as the phenomenon of and reason for the accordance and disaccordance between design factors’ impacts on different forms of restoration.Finally,the prediction models of the restorative quality of patient ward environment were built based on inpatients’ demographic features and environmental characteristics of patient wards,in order to promote existing designs and guide future ones.The comparison between the Multiple Linear Regression model and the BP neural network model shows that the latter is more effective.The scenario tests also proved that the prediction effect of the BP neural network model could meet the practical requirements,which would provide guidance on ward design.With the development of patient-centered design of healthcare environment,the outcomes of this research would provide new design concepts for the promotion of ward environment,and in turn contribute to the improvement of inpatients’ psychological and physiological well-being.