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SEED Grant Research Projects

Lingering Concerns: Reimaging Areas of Waiting in Healthcare Environments

Lingering Concerns: Reimaging Areas of Waiting in Healthcare Environments is a Jefferson Smart and Healthy Cities Fellowship Seed Grant funded in 2022/23. The goals of this study were to determine how the built environment contributes to environmental stress in an emergency department waiting area and to provide informed recommendations to decrease this stress. Our two-part investigation utilized TJUH's ED location at 132 South 10th Street, Philadelphia,19107. In stage one we provided users and caregivers with the pre-validated State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults. Additional survey questions focused on how pleasant various elements in the built environment were throughout the ED. Based on the results of these surveys, stage two developed three room designs that were experienced through virtual reality headsets and walk throughs. Patients and staff provided feedback on the schemes via the environmental survey from stage one. Results indicated that ED patients and caregivers reported relatively elevated state anxiety, and relatively negative perceptions of the environment across the different elements. Further, more unpleasant ratings of the environment were associated with higher state anxiety. In patients, this relationship held even when controlling for current pain levels, suggesting a moderate association between perception of the environment and anxiety within the space.

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