Privacy and Well-Being in Aged Care Facilities with a Crowded Living Environment: Case Study of Hong Kong Care and Attention Homes

Yiqi Tao, Stephen Siu Yu Lau, Zhonghua Gou, Jiayan Fu, Boya Jiang and Xiaowei Chen
Additional contact information
Yiqi Tao: Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117566, Singapore
Stephen Siu Yu Lau: Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117566, Singapore
Zhonghua Gou: School of Engineering and Built Environment, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD 4215, Australia
Jiayan Fu: Department of Architecture, College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310000, China
Boya Jiang: School of Architecture, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China
Xiaowei Chen: School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310000, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: This study aims to understand the relationship between bedroom privacy and well-being of the elderly in aged care facilities with a compact living situation. A majority of studies on this topic were carried out in a low-density population context. The crowded living situation might compromise the well-being of residents. This study proposed five architectural parameters to measure bedroom privacy in aged care facilities: total open surface per unit, openness/solid ratio per bed, height of partition wall, number of people per unit, and personal control over bedroom privacy. SF-12 v.2 Health Survey was used to collect information on physical and mental health status. The study surveyed nine Care & Attention homes and their 213 residents in Hong Kong. The total open surface per unit and the openness/solid ratio per bed were positively associated with the physical health of residents. The height of partition walls was associated negatively with their physical and mental health conditions, and the number of people per unit was negatively associated with their physical health. More than half of respondents preferred a single unit with high partition walls; however, 40% of respondents preferred low partition walls. The provision of privacy for the elderly should be balanced with their needs for social interactions; total open surface per unit, openness/solid ratio per bed and height of partition wall should be taken into consideration. The study provides evidence and design guidelines for improving privacy in aged care facilities with a compact living environment.

Keywords: privacy; well-being; elderly; aged care facilities; compact living (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2157/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2157/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:10:p:2157-:d:173144

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().