Miola Laura, Carbone Elena, Toffalini Enrico, Pazzaglia Francesca
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padua, Italy.
Interuniversity Research Center in Environmental Psychology (CIRPA), Rome, Italy.
Gerontologist. 2023 Oct 17;63(9):1419-1427. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnad029.
Navigational skills display clear signs of decline with increasing age, especially in pathological aging. Therefore, navigability-the extent to which destinations can be reached with reasonable effort and time-should be considered in residential care home design. We aimed to develop a scale assessing environmental features (i.e., indoor visual differentiation, signage, and layout) for navigability in residential care homes: the Residential Care Home Navigability (RCHN) scale. To this end, we examined whether navigability and its factors were associated with a sense of direction within the residential care homes to different degrees for older adult residents, caregivers, and staff. The relationship between navigability and residential satisfaction was also considered.
A sample of 523 participants (230 residents, 126 family caregivers, and 167 staff members) responded to the RCHN, assessed their sense of orientation and general satisfaction, and performed a pointing task.
Results confirmed the RCHN scale's 3-level factor structure, good reliability, and validity. A subjective sense of direction, but not pointing task performance, was associated with navigability and its factors. In particular, visual differentiation is positively associated with a sense of direction regardless of group, whereas signage and layout contributed to a better experience of a sense of direction, especially among older residents. Navigability was not related to residents' satisfaction.
Navigability supports perceived orientation in residential care homes, especially for older residents. Moreover, the RCHN is a reliable tool for the assessment of RCHN, with important implications for minimizing spatial disorientation through environmental interventions.
