Visitor’s Experiences of an Evidence-Based Designed Healthcare Environment in an Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

Objectives: The objective of the research was to study the visitors’ experiences of different healthcare environment designs of intensive care unit (ICU) patient rooms. Background: The healthcare environment may seem frightening and overwhelming in times when life-threatening conditions affect a family member or close friend and individuals visit the patient in an ICU. A two-bed patient room was refurbished to enhance the well-being of patients and their families according to the principles of evidence-based design (EBD). No prior research has used the Person-centred Climate Questionnaire—Family version (PCQ-F) or the semantic environment description (SMB) in the ICU setting. Methods: A sample of 99 visitors to critically ill patients admitted to a multidisciplinary ICU completed a questionnaire; 69 visited one of the two control rooms, while 30 visited the intervention room. Results: For the dimension of everydayness in the PCQ-F, a significantly better experience was expressed for the intervention room ( p < .030); the dimension regarding the ward climate general was also perceived as higher in the intervention room ( p < .004). The factors of pleasantness ( p < .019), and complexity ( p < 0.049), showed significant differences favoring the intervention room in the SMB, with borderline significance on the modern factor ( p < .061). Conclusion: Designing and implementing an enriched healthcare environment in the ICU setting increases person-centered care in relation to the patients’ visitors. This could lead to better outcomes for the visitors, for example, decreasing post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, but this needs further investigations.