A study on Users’ Perceptions of the physical environment Design Factors in Ethiopian Hospitals

Abstract

Background: The physical environment in which an individual lives or receives treatment significantly impacts human health and well-being. Research shows that it is essential to consider users' opinions while designing the physical environment of hospitals. Using an evidence-based methodology, the current study examines how users (N = 384) perceive the physical environment at two large Ethiopian hospitals: St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC) and Nekemte Comprehensive Specialised Hospital (NCSH). Based on a literature review, we examined how all users—that is, hospital staff, patients, and families—perceived the design factors in the two hospitals.

Methods: A questionnaire survey was performed to find out how users felt about the design items that were collected from different sources and to rate their significance. The duration of the data collection was from August 7-18/2022, and September19-30/2022, in NCSH and SPHMMC, respectively. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to decrease the 23 scale items intended for users' self-report perception from several sources in the literature to 21 items. The statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 27. After that, the items' descriptive statistics, including means, frequencies, percentages, and standard indicates that it is crucial to consider users' opinions when deviations (SD), were computed.  

Results: Among the 21 design elements evaluated by 384 hospital patients, cleanliness and hygiene (mean = 4.68) were the most significant environmental features, followed by daylight availability (mean = 4.57) and family-friendly space (mean = 4.43). One of the least significant design elements was the existence of coordinated art objects (mean=3.09).

Conclusion: The discovery of the 21 design factors in this study supports the use of evidence-based design (EBD) to establish a healing environment for all users, including staff, patients, and their families. All the 21 design variables that were taken from the literature has got mean scores higher than 3.0 out of 5.0, indicating that people would rather take them into account when designing a hospital. However, extrapolating these results and attempting to use them as support for other institutions in different regions may require evidence-based decisions due to different factors.