Qualities of Inpatient Hospital Rooms: Patients' Perspectives.

Objectives: The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate what design features of hospital rooms are valued by inpatients.

Background: Little research has explored how patients evaluate the physical environment of their hospital rooms. Most responses are captured by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey, which includes only two questions about the physical environment.

Inpatients' and outpatients' satisfaction: the mediating role of perceived quality of physical and social environment.

This study analyses the processes through which the physical environment of health care settings impacts on patients' well-being. Specifically, we investigate the mediating role of perceptions of the physical and social environments, and if this process is moderated by patients' status, that is, if the objective physical environment impacts inpatients' and outpatients' satisfaction by different social-psychological processes. Patients (N=206) evaluated the physical and social environments of the care unit where they were receiving treatment, and its objective physical conditions were independently evaluated by two architects.