Hospital Designs for Patients of Different Ages

Abstract

The design of hospitals should consider the needs and preferences of the patients, but the preferences of adolescents have received little attention. This investigation analyzed adolescents' preferences for diverse hospital designs and compared them to those of the adults in charge of their care. Participants were 345 adolescents -88 of them hospitalized-76 parents, and 46 health professionals. They all assessed three pairs of photographs of different hospital settings. Quantitative analyses were performed of the choices, and qualitative analyses of their justifications. The results indicated high agreement among the groups about which atmosphere was preferable for children and for adults, and also-with nuances-about the suitability of the nonchild-like atmosphere for adolescents. No important differences were found between hospitalized and nonhospitalized adolescents' responses. The qualitative analyses revealed significant differences between the adolescents' and the adults' response models in their ratings of the hospital setting design. The adolescents' perspective seemed more sensitive than that of the adults towards symbolic aspects and the needs, experiences, and emotions of hospital users. Our work reveals the need to consider adolescents' perspective of hospital design, which cannot be substituted by that of their parents or of the clinical staff.

Designing Well-Being: A Qualitative Investigation of Young Patients’ Perspectives on the Material Hospital Environment

“…(Girl, 16 years; Translation)Here, Nanna details different colorful, thematically arranged rooms and compares the bedrooms to those in amusement parks and hotels. Despite previous research proposing that adolescents are opposed to child-like environments (Ullán et al, 2012), our older participants (12 years and above) stressed the importance of child-friendly and playful designs. In line with the descriptions of the lobby, bedroom features (“princess bed”) are contrasted with clinic elements (“sickbed”).…”

“…Our findings indicate that age differences in environmental preferences are not as clear-cut as previously presented (Peditto et al, 2020; Ullán et al, 2012), especially when adding the disability dimension to the analysis. We have shown that in a sample that is heterogeneous in age and ability, there is a great deal of consistency within the views on positive distraction and control.…”

“…Younger children, for example, need space for play, while adolescents rather have space for socializing with others (Cho et al, 2019; Peditto et al, 2020). Indeed, hospitalized teenagers, who are in a transitional period to adulthood, expressed a dislike for childlike environments (McLaughlan & Willis, 2021; Ullán et al, 2012). Whether this holds up for children, adolescents, and adults with multiple disabilities is yet to be determined.…”

Ecologizing Social Psychology: The Physical Environment as a Necessary Constituent of Social Processes

“…Physical environments will therefore also differ in the extent that they provide an effective milieu for different types of social behaviors. For example, research on college dormitories, hospitals, and nursing homes has demonstrated that certain designs (e.g., suite vs. apartment layouts) influence the frequency of social interactions and subsequent feelings of belonging (Bronkema & Bowman, 2017;Devlin, Donovan, Nicolov, Nold, & Zandan, 2008;Dijkstra, Pieterse, & Pruyn, 2006;Ullán et al, 2012). Complexes that are designed to increase the frequency of chance encounters appear to enhance the social lives of occupants (Easterbrook & Vignoles, 2015).…”

A Measurement Scale to Assess Children’s Satisfaction with Hospitalization in the Andalusian Population

“…However, the opinion of the children has seldom been taken into account, since parents or guardians remain the main agents of information [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]. Nonetheless, there is an emerging trend whereby children and adolescents are directly asked about this issue [22,23,24,25,26,27].…”