Evaluation of the therapeutic relevance of architectural aspects in child and adolescent psychiatric institutions from the perspective of architects and senior physicians.

Objective: The concept of "Healing Architecture" addresses the relevance of design and architectural issues on the outcome of medical and therapeutic treatment in hospitals. The questionnaire ARCHI was developed to record data on the opinion of different groups of users on the architectural design of their therapeutic environment in departments of child and adolescent psychiatry.

Method: A Questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted in two phases between 2020 and 2022 using ARCHI to gather the perspectives of senior physicians and architects on the significance of architectural design in German child and adolescent psychiatric facilities.

[ARCHI - Development of a questionnaire on architecture of child and adolescent psychiatric facilities].

ARCHI - Development of a questionnaire on architecture of child and adolescent psychiatric facilities Studies from various disciplines have pointed to a connection between the structural characteristics of hospitals, in particular psychiatric hospital wards, and various parameters in the recovery process of patients treated there. To date, however, no current studies have further investigated whether individual architectural aspects of clinical complexes are more relevant in everyday practice than others. To link theory with practice in the context of this study, we developed a questionnaire to explore which architectural aspects in hospitals or utilities for child and adolescent psychiatry, psychosomatics, and psychotherapy are perceived by those working in therapy as helpful or detrimental to therapeutic treatment.