A Study on Healing Environmental Factors in the Elderly Patients with Long-Term Care

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify the factors of the healing environment for the elderly receiving long-term care, as perceived by healthcare providers in long-term care hospital and nursing home. The participants were 130 healthcare providers who worked at long-term care hospitals and a nursing home in a region. The data was collected by the structured questionnaire and analyzed by using SPSS/Win 22.0. The mean of the healing environmental importance perceived by participants were 4.76(±0.46). Among the healing environmental domains, comfort scored highest with 4.64 (±0.32) on average, followed by sociality with 4.41 (±0.58), stability with 4.35 (±0.53), territoriality with 4.31 (±0.61), and livability with 4.21 (±0.66). There was no significant difference in the mean importance of any domains in the healing environment between long-term care hospitals and nursing home where the respondents worked. The healing environmental factors affecting the perceived healing environmental importance of participants were natural view, safety/security, and privacy (R2= 0.29). The research findings suggest that healthcare providers in long-term care facilities need to make efforts to recognize the importance of the healing environment and to reflect it in the health care plans.