Mu Jingyi, Kang Jian
Key Laboratory of Cold Region Urban and Rural Human Settlement Environment Science and Technology, School of Architecture, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.
Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, The Bartlett, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2023 Mar 3;14:1106741. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1106741. eCollection 2023.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed dining modes in elderly care facilities. This study explores the relationship between the dining environment of four elderly care facilities and the sensitivity of the elderly residents to it before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study examined differences in subjective comfort levels by measuring the facilities' physical environment, analysing dining behavior, and surveying the elderly residents. And the study examined how the interaction between the physical environment factors, demographic factors, and dining mode affected the residents' evaluation of their dining comfort.
(1) The physical environmental parameters of the four dining rooms differed between the pre- and post-epidemic periods, as shown by increased Sound Pressure Level (SPL), humidity, and temperature levels. (2) The residents' evaluations of physical environment comfort also changed after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The subjective comfort levels of the 'dining with baffle' and 'dining across a seat' modes decreased, though the level of the former was slightly higher than that of the latter. The elderly had stronger SPL tolerance in the dining with baffle mode and dining across a seat mode, and their subjective comfort levels for thermal environment and air quality were higher in the dining across a seat mode. (3) When dining time, crowd density, and communication frequency were kept equal, the subjective comfort level of the elderly in the dining with baffle mode and dining across a seat mode was lower than that in the 'normal' dining mode, when the level in the dining with baffle mode was lower than that in the dining across a seat mode. (4) Differences were observed in subjective comfort levels according to age, education level, and residence duration across the dining modes.
The need for changes in dining modes during the COVID-19 isolation period require dining rooms in elderly care facilities to design their physical environments in a way that improves dining comfort for the elderly.
新冠疫情改变了养老机构的用餐模式。本研究探讨了四家养老机构的用餐环境与新冠疫情爆发前后老年居民对其的敏感度之间的关系。
该研究通过测量设施的物理环境、分析用餐行为以及对老年居民进行调查，来考察主观舒适度的差异。并且研究考察了物理环境因素、人口统计学因素和用餐模式之间的相互作用如何影响居民对用餐舒适度的评价。
（1）四个餐厅的物理环境参数在疫情前后有所不同，表现为声压级（SPL）、湿度和温度水平升高。（2）新冠疫情爆发后，居民对物理环境舒适度的评价也发生了变化。“有隔板用餐”和“隔座用餐”模式的主观舒适度下降，不过前者的水平略高于后者。老年人在有隔板用餐模式和隔座用餐模式下对声压级的耐受性更强，他们在隔座用餐模式下对热环境和空气质量的主观舒适度更高。（3）在用餐时间、人群密度和交流频率保持相等的情况下，有隔板用餐模式和隔座用餐模式下老年人的主观舒适度低于“正常”用餐模式，其中有隔板用餐模式下的水平低于隔座用餐模式。（4）在不同用餐模式下，根据年龄、教育程度和居住时长观察到主观舒适度存在差异。
新冠疫情隔离期间用餐模式改变的需求要求养老机构的餐厅以提高老年人用餐舒适度的方式来设计其物理环境。
