Patients' perception of the psychiatric ward environment

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of their sociodemographic, hospitalization and disease characteristics on ward environment perceptions of inpatients. This descriptive study was carried out with 150 inpatients of İstanbul Erenköy Mental Health Research and Training Hospital Psychiatry Clinic. As data collection tool, "Personal Information Form" and "Clinical Environment Scale" were used. Descriptive analyses, Kruskal Wallis test, Mann Whitney U test, Pearson correlation test and Spearman's rho correlation test were used for data analysis. Mean "Order and Organization" (6.8±2.24) subscale score of the subjects was found to be the highest score obtained in all subscales, while mean "Autonomy" (3.65±1.78) subscale score found was found to be the lowest one. Among primary school graduate inpatients, mean "Autonomy" subscale score (p<0.05); among voluntarily hospitalized inpatients, mean "Openness of Program" subscale score (p<0.05); and among patients with bipolar disorder and frequently hospitalized inpatients, mean "Anger and Aggression" subscale score (p<0.05) were found to be the highest one. It has been established that perception of clinical environment by the inpatients is not influenced by financial status, employment status, the people with whom they reside, previous admission to a different clinic and duration of hospitalization. Data obtained from the present study will make valuable contributions to attempts to impove clinical environment for patients admitted to psychiatric ward. Key Words: Psychiatric patient, psychiatric nurse, environment, ward