Exploring the interaction between Healing Environment and Users : National Taiwan University Children’s Hospital as an Example

• Main Authors: Yi-Ling Lin, 林依伶
• Other Authors: Jeng-Chung Woo
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/32080379672388566897

碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 藝術與造形設計學系碩士班 === 102 === Healing environments may trigger human bodies to heal automatically, by providing a positive atmosphere to improve the users’ well-being. In order to comfort patients, healthcare institutions tend to design the environments with a warm, pleasant, and soothing atmosphere, introducing the elements of healing environments into the domain of medical care so that patients may generate positive emotions and healthcare workers may feel less stressful. Unlike general environments, the design of healing environments not only needs to create safe and friendly surroundings but also needs to take the views and perception of users into consideration. In this study, detail literature review was conducted for discovering the principles of the design of healing environments and analyzing the cases of the hospitals in other countries. This study was conducted at National Taiwan University Children’s Hospital (NTUCH) which was established in 2008 and was the first hospital integrating the healing environment into medical care. Experts in this related field, who are the staff in NTUCH, were recruited to participate in this study as the interviewees. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed based on the grounded theory. The data analysis then generated 292 concepts, 89 open codes, and 25 axial codes. Four aspects of healing environment design which included emotions, space and surroundings, social interaction, and healing atmosphere were found and served as the basis of designing a structure questionnaire. The structured questionnaire was then randomly distributed to the users of NTUCH aged between seven and 18. The results of the questionnaire investigation revealed that significant differences were found in all four aspects of the healing atmosphere at different ages, with younger children scoring higher than older ones. In the aspect of space and surrounding, there were significant differences in gender and age. The means of all aspects were above four, suggesting that the healing environment design of NTUCH was beneficial in bringing these children’s positive emotions, distracting them from anxiety, and comforting them. On the other hand, this study attempted to discover the preference of children aged between seven and 18 concerning the public art demonstrated in NTUCH. The investigation demonstrated that they preferred to see the public art in the hospital, in which the mean of the preference was 4.53. We concluded that (1) they preferred 3D and interactive design in the part of shapes; (2) they preferred landmarks and interactive devices in the part of functions; (3) they preferred animals, colorful materials, and artificial media in the part of design nature. This study is hoping to serve as a reference for domestic medical care institutions so that they may create better healing environments, set a more positive image, and improve the general public’s well-being.