Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The research in healthcare settings reports that natural environments are beneficial for people's health and staff's work. The research on the natural environment in Canadian nursing homes is relatively new and growing. So far, there are no surveys tested for their dependability to collect information on the natural environments' designs and uses (among seniors and caregiving staff) in nursing homes. These types of surveys are critical to producing scientific evidence that is precise. Therefore, this presentation will describe the results of creating two new surveys with dependable topics, questions, and language. The researcher prepared multiple rounds of questionnaires based on research to ask the opinions of twenty-four experts. Their opinions helped determine the most important topics and questions for the new surveys. The experts also helped with the wording, which will be finalized (before the conference dates) by 30 research participants who work in the nursing homes. The results show that sunlight and nature are the most important focus for the new surveys. Experts highlighted considerations, such as distinguishing sunlight from daylight, having control, specifying weather, and wording. One survey will collect information on design in shared spaces and residents' activities. This first survey covers 20 topics, such as "view out of the main windows" and asks questions like "When I look out of the main window what do I see?". Another survey will collect information on caregiving staff's activities and perceptions. This second survey covers ten topics, such as "Daylight and me" and asks how frequently they encounter scenarios like "I walk by windows while I am working." The creation of these surveys is timely because Ontario is redeveloping nursing homes. As a licensed landscape architect and health services researcher, I believe that dependable surveys will help produce precise scientific evidence, which can be used to build health-promoting environments.