2019 - Daylight Symposium
"An Explorative Study on Impact of Daylight and View among Operating Room Nurse" by Marielle Aarts
Speakers
Marielle Aarts
Assistant professor
Building Lighting group, Department of the Built Environment
Presentation from the 8th VELUX Daylight Symposium that took place in Paris on 9 October 2019. For more information please visit http://thedaylightsite.com & https://www.velux.com/veluxdaysinparis
Background: A hospital environment should support the healing process of patients but also consider the needs of the care professionals. Staff shortages are growing, which stresses the importance to keep current staff healthy, vital, satisfied, and the quality of care high 1–3. Access to daylight and an exterior view in the workplace have demonstrated to release stress, lead to higher energy, less tension, lower number of burn-outs, and a greater job-satisfaction 4–8. Research on this topic has predominantly been performed in labs or in an office setting, and substantially less in healthcare. A few studies in hospitals demonstrated the positive impact of exterior windows on stress, sleepiness, mood, communication, performance, and hospital safety 5,9–11.
The operating rooms (OR), are typically windowless. The goal of this study is to investigate the impact of daylight and windows with an external view on stress, job satisfaction, vitality, seasonal effect, and well-being of OR-nurses. Methods: An on-line survey was distributed in spring 2018, among 170 RG-nurses working in an OR (surgery and anaesthesia nurses) of four different Dutch hospitals. Two hospitals had OR’s with only internal view and two had windows with external view. The surveys contained the validated questionnaire “Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire”, and subscales of “Activation-Deactivation Adjective Checklist” and the “Dutch Questionnaire on the Experience and Evaluation of Work”. In total 119 completed surveys were returned of which 40% worked in an OR with an external window. Results: In the OR’s with access to daylight and an exterior view, the perceived stress was significantly lower than in the OR’s without external windows. Also the number of hours of sleep needed in springtime and the number of nocturnal awakenings was significantly lower for the people with external view. No significant differences were found for the other indicators.
Conclusion: The subjective experience of stress influenced by an exterior view and daylight Marielle Aarts graduated on the light preference of office workers, at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Since 2002, she is an assistant professor at the Building Lighting group, Department of the Built Environment (TU/e). She educates students on light and lighting and in her research she aims to define light strategies for a human-centered built environment. Her expertise’s are (day)light, human responses to light, and research methodologies for field studies. Currently her focus is on Healing Environments, specifically hospitals and offices. She is chair of the Light and Health Research Foundation (SOLG) and founding member of the Daylight Academy (DLA).
