Evaluation of Environmental and Physical Factors Affecting the Perception of Coronary Patients in Inpatient Wards of Private Hospitals in Karaj

This research aims to answer the fundamental question of how environmental factors are perceived by COVID-19 patients in hospitals and through what mechanisms. In other words, from the perspective of patients hospitalized in the country's hospitals, what environmental factors have the greatest impact on their perception and therefore, the improvement of their physical immune system in the face of the coronavirus? By evaluating these factors, strategies can be developed to improve the quality of environmental and physical factors in hospitalization wards and potentially enhance the patient's condition.

The present study is a descriptive survey type in terms of its objective, applicability, and execution method. The statistical population of the research consisted of private hospitals in the city of Karaj, including five hospitals which had 138 recovered patients from the COVID-19 ward in the fourth peak of the coronavirus pandemic. Using the cluster random sampling method and the Cochran's formula, 102 individuals were selected as the sample. The reason for using quantitative methods instead of qualitative ones was the better generalizability of the research results and the research objective, which was to evaluate the effective environmental and physical factors on the perception of COVID-19 patients from the perspective of those who had firsthand experience in the hospitalization ward. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire with 6 dimensions, which was validated and its reliability was confirmed by content validity and Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS software version25 and the model was fitted using Smartpls software version 2.

The research findings showed that environmental and physical factors that affect the perception of COVID-19 patients can be classified into 6 categories: "facilities and equipment, visual attractions, thermal quality, air and lighting quality, sound quality, comfort, and accessibility".
According to the findings, the level of impact of sound quality factors had the highest potential with a coefficient of 84.2% in explaining the changes in patients' perception of environmental and physical factors. Thermal quality with a coefficient of 83.6% indicated that the cooling and heating temperatures of the room and corridor were in a desirable state. The level of comfort and ease of accessibility had a potential of 60.7%. The facilities and hospital room environment factor had a coefficient of 31.4%, and visual attractions had the least potential in explaining the variance of patients' perception of environmental and physical factors with a potential of 14.6%.

Based on the results of the present study, with environmental and physical interventions and attention to these factors in hospital design, steps can be taken towards changing and improving these variables and providing a faster improvement for these patients, as well as improving mental imagery content by increasing the readability and clarity of the environment through changes in the presentation of spaces and defining the boundaries and scope of each activity. One of the limitations of this study was the difficult access to recovering COVID-19 patients. The results obtained in this study can be a prelude to the definition and design of future research.