New study: Having greenery around hospitals can ease confusion, anger among patients, visitors, healthcare providers

New Research: Introducing nature into large hospitals can humanize the institutional environment and reduce the stress of patients, visitors as well as healthcare providers, a new research suggests. The study was conducted by Shan Jiang at West Virginia University.

Walking and moving around large hospitals could be stressful and feel like a trap. Patients and visitors moving around from one point to another inside a visually-bland medical complex exacerbates an already stressed mental state. In this case, Jiang has come up with a possible solution, which is to let nature come in. His findings were published in the ‘Health Environments Research and Design Journal’.

Jiang, the associate professor at Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design, utilised immersive virtual environments—digitally created “worlds” that users were engrossed in. It was a controlled experiment that asked participants to complete various wayfinding tasks.

All the participants in the experiment saw the same hospital layout and room arrangement, whereas for one group of participants who saw large windows and nature views among the corridor walls. On the other hand, the control group saw solid walls without any natural view or daylight. The experiment showed that participants in the greenspace group used shorter time and walked less distance to complete wayfinding tasks.

“In terms of spatial orientation and wayfinding, window views of nature and small gardens can effectively break down the tedious interiors of large hospital blocks, ” Jiang was quoted as saying in ANI, and “serves as a landmarks to aid people ‘s wayfinding and improve their spatial experience. The study also highlighted that participant’s mood, particularly anger and confusion, was significantly relieved in the greenspace group.

The study further revealed that green spaces situated at key decision points, such as the main corridor or junction of departmental units, can serve as landmarks that attract positive attention and improve the overall navigational experience among patients, visitors and healthcare providers.

Jiang also noted that many hospitals across Europe have successfully integrated “hospital in a park” concepts. In the United States, the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in California features patios and window nooks in almost every patient’s room. Most of the rooms in that hospital have direct views of a large healing garden, she noted.