The analysis of a paediatric treatment environment in the context of nurses' and companions’ behaviours through space syntax and behaviour maps

Abstract

Pediatric treatment environments are settings that should be designed in a child-centered spatial manner that treats the child as a holistic entity with his/her physical, cognitive, social, and psychological needs. According to David and Weinstein (1987), children are not the only users of these settings, the needs of adults as well as children should be considered, as these environments are also used by their parents. Platt Report (1959) which demonstrates family-centered design procedures in children’s hospitals, also informs that if a mother is staying with her child, she should also be considered as a member of the team involved in the treatment process. So, in addition to medical doctors and nurses, companions are among the main actors of children's treatment settings whose social and psychological needs should be taken into consideration. However, the fact that companions are vital members of the treatment process is usually ignored in the architectural design of many children's treatment services in Turkey. The case study which is carried out in a Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Service with the participation of 30 companions and 13 nurses, through which the significance of the data obtained by behavioral maps and spatial syntax methods are statistically investigated, shows that companions are at least as active as nurses and they take a vigorous role in the treatment of their children and also need social interaction and privacy. As a result of the correlations established between the behavioral data of nurses and companions, and the syntactic data of each space, it is analyzed whether the syntactic data regarding the physical structure of the space are related to the behavioral frequencies of each participant group. Considering the significant data that emerged in the analyzes, it is revealed that the behavior frequencies of the companions are as high as the nurses.