Objective: This study investigates how patients and medical staff assess the physical environments of two recently built hospitals in Sulaimani City to understand the extent to which indoor environmental factors influence the creation of an optimal healing environment. Background: A contemporary healing environment may be recognized by the quality of an indoor environment in positively influencing patients’ psychological comfort and supporting their recovery. Method: Post-occupancy evaluations were conducted in Shar General Hospital and Faruk Medical City wards. A 43-item questionnaire was distributed to 312 patients, doctors, and nurses to gather their perspectives. In total, 175 valid questionnaires were retrieved. Results: The results show that the quality of the indoor environments met patients’ psychological needs and expectations, and as a result, they were generally satisfied with the indoor healing environments. The findings from the patient and medical staff surveys suggest three essential factors in creating a healing environment, which are (1) Interior appearance, (2) Privacy, and (3) Comfort and control. Significant negative correlations of some demographic characteristics, such as educational attainment and age, with patient satisfaction were observed. Conclusions: This study shows that exploring patients’ and medical staff’s experiences can reveal factors that positively influence patients’ satisfaction levels, which may vary depending on their sociocultural perspectives and personal characteristics. Additionally, the findings emphasize the role of the tested factors in increasing patients’ satisfaction levels, optimizing healing environments, and informing design decisions.

Modern hospital indoor environment aims at fulfilling the psychological needs and preferences of the people who use it. Nowadays, physical and non-physical and healing environments are perceived as potential contributors to recovery processes. Unlike curing, healing relates to aspects of health that are psychological and spiritual. This study aims at tracing the relationship between the qualitative level of the healing environment and patients’ psychological comfort. Therefore, a 43-item questionnaire was distributed among 148 respondents to obtain patients’ opinion; a total of 117 valid questionnaires were received. The results showed that the quality of the healing environment can be considerably related to the fulfilment of patients’ satisfaction. The patients at tested hospitals were generally satisfied with their healing environments. The findings revealed four crucial factors, Interior appearance, Comfort and control, Views and Privacy, to create a satisfying healing environment. A negative correlation between demographic information, such as age and education, and patient satisfaction was revealed. Additionally, this study suggests that post-occupancy evaluation is a relevant tool for evaluating the quality of indoor environment and a useful technique to inform designers that variations in the indoor physical design may positively influence the patients’ level of satisfaction.

Purpose This study aims to trace the relationship between the evidence-based design (EBD) process and decision-making during the architectural design process, the barriers to informing health-care architects and possible methods to overcome these barriers. Design/methodology/approach This study aims to explore the barriers to the EBD process during the design process by reviewing the relevant literature and future steps to overcome these barriers and support design decisions. Findings The study shows that EBD is a relevant, useful tool for providing evidence that positively affects design decisions. This study divides EBD barriers into simple barriers and complex barriers, depending on the nature of the barrier. Additionally, methods to overcome these barriers are discussed to ensure the best use of EBD findings with a significant impact on health-care design decisions, as they are core elements in informing architects, especially when combined with the traditional design process. This study investigates how likely it is for the EBD to contribute optimally to design decisions depending on architects’ skills and cooperation with researchers. Originality/value This study can apprize health-care architects of the need to consider the role of EBD in improving the quality of design decisions, and the importance of combining EBD with the traditional design process to implement optimal design decisions.

The research aims to identify the effect of color on human health in general and psychological dimension, in particular, to enhance the performance of the interior spaces of hospitals by studying the used colors with the possibility of proper utilizing of it with user psychology and health in hospitals spaces. The study also aims to identify the implications of color expression and its impact on the interior design of hospitals and reaching solutions and suggestions achieving greater understanding of color and its utilizing to enhance the efficiency of the hospital spaces . The research follows descriptive and analytical methods which have been utilized through the description and analysis of the colors of some of the internal spaces of the selected public hospitals building in the city of Sulaimani, as Case Study. Furthermore, the search adopted field interviews of a group of specialists and users of those architectural spaces with different functions to find out the role of psychological effects of colors on it, and then determine the final conclusions and that is the existence of the possibility of the use of color to improve the psychological state of the patients, users of the internal spaces of hospitals and to help accelerating the healing process.