Bismin Babu Varghese

B090248AR

BEHAVIORAL AND SPATIAL SETTING OF PAEDIATRIC SECTION IN HOSPITALS

Children and adolescents seek to actively manage, negotiate and cope with their time in hospital.

They value an interactive, engaging and aesthetically pleasing environment and a friendly, caring welcome from the hospital community.

Children’s and adolescents’ assessment of the appropriateness of the environment is linked to the aesthetics of the environment, the volume of age-appropriate activities there are available within the hospital and the friendliness and welcome they receive from the hospital community.

Outside the main entrance of The Children's Hospital at Westmead

WHAT WOULD CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE LIKE?

Supporting children’s experience of fit in a hospital setting means being mindful of the need to support children’s choices, needs and purposes and their capacity for self-help,

A supportive environment should not resist children’s efforts at self-help and should recognise the dynamic cycles of mutual influence between patient and environment that underpin children’s struggle for their feeling of wellbeing in hospital.

Friendly staff

Aesthetics (colour, artwork and brightness),

Spatial variety (in particular the function and variety of non-medical spaces)

To adaptability and flexibility in the environment.

KEY PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES TO BE CONSIDERED

Public spaces Bed spaces Clinical spaces Outdoor space Recreation spaces

VARIOUS SPACES

Include the need to provide opportunities for self-

care management, confidentiality, competence, control and choice

PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS

Include the need for social support and social contact

with friends and families

SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

Involve the need to provide adequate cognitive

stimulation, and access to recreational and learning activities

ORGANISATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

The need for personal space, privacy, independent movement and comfort within the environment.

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENTAL

The need for age-appropriate spaces and interiors, especially for adolescents, respecting the importance of having personal possessions for patients and being able to personalise their bed area

Identifying a preference for colour and artwork in the environment; and identifying the importance of having access to gardens in the hospital environment

Example of a personalised bed area

An environment that

supports children’s feelings of wellbeing by addressing their need to feel comfortable in the environment, maintain a positive frame of mind and remain positively engaged;

facilitates children’s goodness of fit by supporting individual choice, control and self-help and by minimising unwanted distractions (such as noise, light and unsolicited social contact)

maximises the opportunities to include features which are identified by the study as indicating child-friendliness. These include maximising the volume of age-appropriate activities in the environment, and providing a bright and colourful environment and a welcoming and friendly social environment.

A SUPPORTIVE PAEDIATRIC ENVIRONMENT:

DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS

i) ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS include Artwork, Colour and Brightness.

Through these three aesthetic elements, children and adolescents perceive messages of welcome, comfort, appropriateness and fun.

help children and adolescents to sustain a positive frame of mind and to remain positively engaged, both of which directly contribute to their feeling of wellbeing.

• ARTWORK:

Art should be age-appropriate and without the simplistic images associated with young children. It should include artwork completed by other children and adolescents, as this artwork in particular conveyed messages of support and welcome and the importance of children’s welfare to the organisation.

• COLOUR:

the environment should include a large amount of colour – preferably bright colour – and this should vary around the environment.

• BRIGHTNESS:

-is a nebulous concept that represents a composite assessment of a range of environmental features,

-potentially involving many different aspects of the environment, including the need for a lot of colour, artwork, light and plants in the environment.

-Anything in the environment can contribute to the assessment of brightness, ranging from the social attitudes of the hospital community to the colour of carpet and furniture, and the size and placement of windows and skylights.

FLEXIBILITY AND ADAPTABILITY

Providing flexible and adaptable environments or environmental attributes means providing patients with the capacity to alter their immediate environment.

This translates into providing patients with the capacity to experience control, express their identity and reveal their interests, to alter the environment aesthetically and to personalise it with familiar and valued objects.

SPATIAL VARIETY AND FUNCTION

• providing facilities which enable children and adolescents to carry out normal routines with their friends and family,

• providing access to outdoor areas and natural environments for contrast and to enable patients to escape and to experience a restorative environment.

School room at The Children's Hospital in Westmead

ThAnK YoU