Evaluation of green hospital practices from the service user perspective; Adana - Mersin case

This research aims to measure the awareness of individuals receiving services at selected public hospitals in Adana and Mersin regarding green hospital practices, evaluate the impact of these practices on hospital preferences, and compare the awareness levels of individuals receiving services from hospitals with and without the green hospital designation. It also examines how awareness levels vary based on factors such as age, gender, marital status, monthly income, preferred type of hospital, and city, with the goal of comparing these findings with results from previous studies. The population of the study consists of Adana City Training and Research Hospital, which has the green hospital designation, and Adana Yüreğir State Hospital and Mersin Toros State Hospital, which do not have this designation. A quantitative data collection tool was used in the study, consisting of a two-part questionnaire, which was filled out face-to-face with individuals receiving services from the mentioned hospitals. The first part of the questionnaire included questions designed to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants (age, gender, marital status, income, etc.). The second part utilized the "Green Hospital Design Scale," developed by Wood, Wang, Abdul-Rahman, and Abdul Nasir (2016) and translated into Turkish by Mansur and Korkmaz (2020), which consists of 24 items on a 5-point Likert scale to identify factors reflecting perceptions of green hospitals according to demographic variables.As a result of the study, it was found that individuals receiving health services from hospitals with the green hospital designation have a higher level of awareness compared to those receiving services from hospitals without the green hospital certification. Regardless of the hospital, all individuals receiving services showed the lowest awareness in "water efficiency" and the highest awareness in "indoor environmental quality" practices. Factors such as comfort, safety, aesthetics, and spaciousness were found to be important in hospital preferences. The number of certified hospitals has increased compared to previous years, and awareness levels varied according to all demographic factors except for the "city of residence.