Effect of Physical Environmental of Medical Space in Reducing Patients’ Anxiety and Stress (Case Study: a Dental Office)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, College of Fine Art, University of Tehran, Tehran

2 Master of Architecture, Kish International Campus, University of Tehran, Tehran

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore whether the physical environmental of medical space can affect the patients’ stress and anxiety. (Numerous studies have suggested that anxiety is found in most clinical/medical settings. Stress occurs when there is an imbalance of environmental demands and human resources. The environment may add to this stress, with overcrowding, noise, lack of privacy, and glare, especially when coupled with poor interior color schemes. All of these stress factors can negatively affect the process of healing). The particular definition in this research was the relationship between environmental factors (brightness, peaceful, noisy, color, privacy and crowding) and stress. A dental office is considered as an effective environment which changed decoration and interior design during the time according to dentists and staffs demands. To research this, a study was carried out between two groups: peoples who referred to dental office before interior design changes and peoples who referred to dental office after interior design changes. The attitudes and perceptions of the two groups of patients (through questionnaires distributed) compared. Before the results of the analysis were determined, the reliability of the dependent and independent variables was tested with Cronbach’s test. The Cronbach alpha for variables was more than 0.70. Results from 80 patients showed that environmental factors such as brightness, peaceful, noisy, color, privacy and crowding could effect on patients and reduce their stress and anxiety. It is obvious; changing the interior design of dental office could increase quality-in-perception by:  ● Promoting the content of mental with increasing legibility and image ability of environment and changing the location of activities and territorial behavior. ● Reducing stress and anxiety and avoiding spatial ambiguity by defining the territorial behavior and personal space or user activity. ● Optimizing the quality of space with changing light, color furniture, television, music, artworks and etc. ● Eliminating the negative impact of the stress known by physical design of a waiting area (waiting area indeed buffer). Also it was found that according to patient’s position during treatment, design of ceiling which located in the field of patients’ view is important to reduced stress significantly. Utilizing color, light and especially picture of nature is more effective. In the other words, an important part of curing relates to the quality of care that patients receive. Studies on perceived quality of care suggest that patient-perceived quality of care is heavily defined by the amount of empathy, warmth, and friendliness that the patient experiences. The environment plays an important role in conveying empathy, warmth, and friendliness even before the patient interacts with staff. In this research, data analysis indicated that the purpose of medical environmental design should not be focused on curing people physically or in the limited sense of bricks and mortar. In addition to providing medical services, it should prepare appropriate mental and physical spatial for users (patients and staff). The design of health-care facilities should be human-centered and functionally efficient, to benefit patients, their families, and staff alike. In other words, interior design of medical space is necessity not luxury.

Keywords

References

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