Lambert V, Coad J, Hicks P, Glacken M
School of Nursing and Human Sciences, Faculty of Science and Health, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland.
Child Care Health Dev. 2014 Mar;40(2):195-204. doi: 10.1111/cch.12016. Epub 2013 Jan 7.
In the last number of years heightened interest has been attributed to the impact of hospital environments on children's psychosocial well-being. With policy largely built around adult assumptions, knowledge about what constitutes a child-friendly hospital environment from young children's perspectives has been lacking. If hospital environments are to aspire to being child friendly then the views of younger aged children must be taken into account. The current study investigated young children's perspectives of hospital social spaces to inform the design of the built environment of a new children's hospital.
An exploratory qualitative participatory design was employed. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews (one-to-one and group workshops) which incorporated art-based activities to actively engage young children. Fifty-five young children aged 5 to 8 years with various acute and chronic illnesses were recruited from inpatient, outpatient and emergency departments of three children's hospitals.
Young children want a diversity of readily available, independently accessible, age, gender and developmentally appropriate leisure and entertainment facilities seamlessly integrated throughout the hospital environment. Such activities were invaluable for creating a positive hospital experience for children by combating boredom, enriching choice and control and reducing a sense of isolation through enhanced socialization. When in hospital, young children want to feel socially connected to the internal hospital community as well as to the outside world. Technology can assist to broaden the spectrum of children's social connectivity when in hospital - to home, school and the wider outside world.
While technology offers many opportunities to support children's psychosocial well-being when in confined healthcare spaces, the implementation and operation of such services and systems require much further research in the areas of ethics, facilitation, organizational impact and evaluation.
在过去几年中，医院环境对儿童心理社会幸福感的影响受到了越来越多的关注。由于政策大多基于成人的假设，因此缺乏从幼儿角度了解什么构成儿童友好型医院环境的知识。如果医院环境要致力于成为儿童友好型，那么就必须考虑年幼儿童的观点。本研究调查了年幼儿童对医院社交空间的看法，以为新儿童医院建筑环境的设计提供参考。
采用探索性定性参与式设计。通过半结构化访谈（一对一和小组工作坊）收集数据，其中纳入了基于艺术的活动，以使年幼儿童积极参与。从三家儿童医院的住院部、门诊部和急诊科招募了55名患有各种急慢性疾病的5至8岁年幼儿童。
年幼儿童希望在医院环境中能随时获得各种丰富多样、可独立使用、适合年龄、性别和发育阶段的休闲娱乐设施，并将其无缝整合。这些活动对于为儿童创造积极的医院体验非常宝贵，它们可以消除无聊感、增加选择和控制感，并通过加强社交减少孤独感。住院期间，年幼儿童希望感到与医院内部社区以及外部世界都有社会联系。技术可以帮助拓宽儿童住院期间的社交范围，使其与家庭、学校和更广阔的外部世界建立联系。
虽然技术为在有限的医疗空间中支持儿童的心理社会幸福感提供了许多机会，但此类服务和系统的实施与运营在伦理、便利化、组织影响和评估等领域还需要进一步深入研究。
