The ways in which healthcare interior environments are associated with perception of safety from infectious diseases and coping behaviours

Bae, Suyeon

BACKGROUND: Global pandemic outbreaks often have people fear. Healthcare personnel (HCP), especially those fighting the pathogens at the front lines, encounter a higher risk of being infected, while they treat patients. In addition, a variety of environmental fomites in hospitals, which may contain infectious agents, can post a high risk of getting infectious diseases. AIM: Making HCP feel safe from infectious diseases is critical to delivering the best healthcare practice. Therefore, this study aims provide a better understanding of HCP’s HH behaviours and perceptions of infectious diseases from psychological perspectives. METHOD: Observations measured different environmental features at three different departments and questionnaires asked HCP’s perception of safety from infectious diseases and coping behaviors (e.g., avoidance and disinfection). FINDINGS: This study has implications for potential interventions that enough HH stations at convenient locations would increase HH compliance rate from psychological perspectives, perception of safety from infectious diseases. In response to the current research gap in psychological aspects associated with HH, this study also presents HCP’s coping behaviours (e.g., avoidance and disinfection) would be predicted by their perceived contamination likelihoods and their perceived vulnerability enhanced the associations. CONCLUSIONS: Nonetheless, due to several limitations, those findings should be carefully interpreted and further studies must be conducted with more solid academic rigor.