Perceptions on thermal comfort in general wards forudMalaysian hospitals

摘要

Environmental Quality Perception (EQP) is constructed to help in environmental studies and as anudassessment tool for the environment and behaviour field studies. Using EQP assessment method inudthe hospital environment studies helps to understand the relationship between people and theudhospital environment. Achieving sufficient thermal comfort level in existing government hospitaludbuildings were seriously considered especially in general wards where patients and staffs most spendudtime in. The assessments were completed by 120 respondents (i.e. patients and staff nurse) from fiveuddifferent general wards located in different blocks in a Malaysian public hospital. To assess perceptionudvalidity, one is focusing on objective physical observation evaluating the hospital environmentudcorrelated with subjective evaluation through questionnaire on social environment. The main objectiveudof this research is to investigate the users’ perceptions of existing thermal comfort quality in theuddifferent department’s general wards of existing government hospitals in providing comparative tableudshowing the different performance of thermal comfort. Overall reliability on thermal satisfaction by theudoccupants shows significant differences in all identified variables that were influenced by location andudcharacteristic of the buildings as well as the respondents demographic. Mixed method analyses wereudused whereby data responds were analysed by multivariate (MANOVA) and univariate (ANOVA)udanalyses of variance for quantitative and triangulation analyses were tabled down for qualitativeudbetween average responses of thermal comfort perceived with the hospital physical. The findingsudconcluded with majority perceived moderation on most thermal comfort elements indicates that thereudwere growing acceptance and tolerance with the space that are subjected to duration of admitted andudhours of working. Therefore, further investigation should be carried out to enhance the probability inudperceptions with multiple hospitals for clear comparisons.