ABSTRACT OF RESEARCHES INCLUDING THERAPEUTIC ENVIRONMENT, CULTURAL LANDSCAPE AND WOOD CARVING IN VERNACULAR ENVIRONMENT

 

Children Therapeutic Garden as Environmental Intervention for Healing Process of Hospitalised Children
 

ISMAIL SAID
[email protected]
Dept. of Landscape Architecture
Faculty of Built Environment
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru

Hospitalisation often erode the feelings of toddlers and young children that cause regressive behaviors and stress which result to reduced cognitive performance, helplessness, restlessness, crying, anxiety, and elevated blood pressure. Having the children experiencing a garden setting, either in passive or active mode, can arouse their senses that nurture their inductive and deductive, motor-impulses development and reflective thinking capabilities and thus reduce the stress that would foster their recovery. Such experience is offered by the paediatric gardens at Batu Pahat Hospital and Segamat Hospital, Johor, Malaysia. This experimental study investigates the impact of the garden  as an environmental intervention on the psychological well-being of acutely ill patients, aged 1.5 to 12 years old, whom experience the garden for at least two days.  Their behavior responses are evaluated through Post Occupancy Evaluation method using two sets of survey questionnaires and an interview. The feelings of patients towards the presence of garden besides their ward is significantly positive whereby 94% of patients preferred to be and play in the garden and 95% of them would like going to or do not mind going to the hospital after the existence of the garden. The attributes of the garden that contribute to this psychological positiveness include refreshing smell and fresh air, pleasant views, presence of vegetations and wildlife, cheerful setting with natural light and sense of openness, feeling of free to move and play, and sense of home-like environment. These attributes, with p< 0.001, have resulted to several psychological peacefulness and adjustment qualities including patients are more cooperative to treatment, physically active in the garden and thus less crying and more independent, and more cheerful as well as more obedience to their caregivers.