Healing gardens in children's hospitals: Reflections on benefits, preferences and design from visitors' books

- End-user reflections on their use and experience of an inner-city children's hospital healing gardens are analysed.
- Users report valuing garden views, having 'time out', being in nature, restorative experiences, and access to outdoor air most highly.
- Visitors' books provide unique, unsolicited insights into user experiences.
- Visitor feedback suggests the garden design has been successful in providing a place for respite.
- The garden design demonstrates the inclusion of healing gardens into a highly space-constrained hospital site.

There is increasing interest in the use of healing gardens in healthcare settings to provide therapeutic benefits. However it is not yet well understood how people who spend time in these gardens use these spaces, and whether the intended benefits are experienced. This paper evaluates visitor feedback about healing gardens at the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, to gain insight into end-user experiences compared with existing literature about experiences of healing gardens and natural contexts. We have coded and analysed unsolicited comments left in visitors' books over a period of four weeks immediately after the hospital was opened. Several themes have been identified relating to reasons for which people access the healing gardens; benefits they perceive from spending time in these spaces; and features and aspects of the gardens that are most appreciated. We conclude that the gardens at the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital provide emotional respite to visitors, through appreciation of the views, being able to have time out, being in nature, restorative experiences, and access to outdoor air. The visitor feedback suggests that the original intention of the garden design has been largely successful, and provides insight into particular aspects of the garden design that are critical to enhancing visitor benefits.