PERCEPTIONS ON THERMAL COMFORT IN GENERAL WARDS FOR MALAYSIAN HOSPITALS

Abstract

Environmental Quality Perception (EQP) is constructed to help in environmental studies and as anassessment tool for the environment and behaviour field studies. Using EQP assessment method inthe hospital environment studies helps to understand the relationship between people and thehospital environment. Achieving sufficient thermal comfort level in existing government hospitalbuildings were seriously considered especially in general wards where patients and staffs most spendtime in. The assessments were completed by 120 respondents (i.e. patients and staff nurse) from fivedifferent general wards located in different blocks in a Malaysian public hospital. To assess perceptionvalidity, one is focusing on objective physical observation evaluating the hospital environmentcorrelated with subjective evaluation through questionnaire on social environment. The main objectiveof this research is to investigate the users’ perceptions of existing thermal comfort quality in thedifferent department’s general wards of existing government hospitals in providing comparative tableshowing the different performance of thermal comfort. Overall reliability on thermal satisfaction by theoccupants shows significant differences in all identified variables that were influenced by location andcharacteristic of the buildings as well as the respondents demographic. Mixed method analyses wereused whereby data responds were analysed by multivariate (MANOVA) and univariate (ANOVA)analyses of variance for quantitative and triangulation analyses were tabled down for qualitativebetween average responses of thermal comfort perceived with the hospital physical. The findingsconcluded with majority perceived moderation on most thermal comfort elements indicates that therewere growing acceptance and tolerance with the space that are subjected to duration of admitted andhours of working. Therefore, further investigation should be carried out to enhance the probability inperceptions with multiple hospitals for clear comparisons.