Pictorial intervention in a pediatric hospital environment: Effects on parental affective perception of the unit

In recent decades, research on health care design and planning has highlighted the strong relationship between environmental characteristics and human health. According to a patient-centered model, the focus on the hospital environment is important in reducing the negative effects of hospitalization on the patient, especially in the case of children.In a hospital Pediatric Unit, a pictorial intervention, characterized by natural landscapes with cartoon characters, was introduced. The study sought to evaluate the effects of this intervention on the affective qualities attributed to the hospital environment by parents whose children were hospitalized; our main hypothesis was that the pictorial intervention would benefit parents, enhancing the positive and reducing the negative affective perception of the hospital environment.A total of 502 parents of admitted children aged 0–11 completed a questionnaire to describe the affective perception of the hospital environment, 200 before the pictorial intervention was performed, and 302 (200 parents of children with acute illness, 102 of children with chronic pathology) after it. Results revealed that the parental affective perception of the hospital environment significantly improved after the pictorial intervention, with almost no differences in relation to severity of child illness (acute versus chronic); a younger child age was negatively related to parental affective perception of the unit only in the condition without the intervention.Data suggest that the pictorial intervention represents a useful technique to create more welcoming hospital environments, reducing the negative affective perception of the unit in parents facing the stress of their child's hospitalization.

► During child admission, hospital environment can be stressful also for the parents.
► A pictorial humanization was realized in a Pediatric Unit for chronic and acute illness.
► Parental perceptions of the Unit were collected before and after the intervention.
► Positive perceptions significantly increased after it, while the negative decreased.
► These effects were evident independently from child's age and illness severity.