Abstract
Demands for geriatric hospital have increased in an era of rapidly aging population. Most of aged patients tend to stay in institutions for long terms. This means that the patient rooms of geriatric hospital should be given different considerations from those of normal hospital in designing interior features. They should be a homelike places for the aged patients and designed to take care of specific needs of the aged. However, most of geriatric hospitals are designed with little attention to such point. They appear almost same to normal ones. This study attempts to examine how users evaluate patients' rooms. The users are nurses, care-givers and family members of aged patients in six geriatric hospitals in Busan. They rated 12 features of patient rooms from 0 point to 100 points and described reasons why they rated in that way. Also, the walk-through was done for these six hospitals. 12 features are sizes of patient rooms, sizes and fixtures of bathrooms, sizes and locations of windows, bed layout, numbers and types of chairs, sizes and types of closet, lighting, color scheme, finishes of floor and wall, and interior design tone. Followings are findings : The users evaluated patients' rooms relatively positive. However, extra chairs for visitors, closet in patients rooms and storage in bathroom, and sizes of patients rooms and bathrooms were evaluated relatively negative.
