Environmental strategies for enhancing the quality of elderly care facilities in an aging society : post-occupancy evaluation on care and attention homes for the elderly in Hong Kong

Abstract

The physical environment has a huge influence on both the satisfaction and the health-related quality of life of older adults. This study was conducted in nine care and attention (C&A) homes in Hong Kong in July 2015 (summer) and January 2016 (winter). The author explored the outdoor-environment attributes, indoor-environment attributes, and architecture-related design strategies that may affect the satisfaction and health-related quality of life of residents of typical podium-type C&A homes in Hong Kong.

The chosen method was post-occupancy evaluation, comprising environmental measurements (air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, Predicted Mean Vote, Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied, lighting, noise level, etc.) and questionnaire surveys (occupants’ satisfaction votes and a self-evaluated health questionnaire, SF-12). Correlation analysis and logistic regression were performed using the software package IBM SPSS 20.0 to carry out the data analysis.

The results of the study indicated that attributes of both the outdoor environment (public open / green space, transport space, and service space) and the indoor environment (air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, lighting, and noise level) affected the physical and / or the mental health of the C&A residents. In addition, architecture-related design strategies such as bedroom privacy and floor-plan legibility were found to influence the satisfaction as well as the health-related quality of life of the C&A residents.

In light of these findings, interventive design strategies for enhancing the quality of C&A homes in Hong Kong were developed. Such strategies included recommendations for suitable outdoor-environment attributes around C&A homes; the specification of desirable ranges for indoor-environment parameters capable of enhancing residents’ satisfaction and health-related quality of life; and architecture-related design strategies with the potential to solve related problems experienced by the older adults on a daily basis. Finally, the author concluded that the future post-occupancy evaluation of C&A homes in Hong Kong should focus not only on management but also on environmental attributes that significantly affect the health-related quality of life of C&A residents.