Field study of air environment perceptions and influencing factors in waiting spaces of general hospitals in winter cities

Subjective evaluation is an important topic in the study of hospital indoor air quality. This study investigates air environment perception and factors influencing that perception in different types of waiting spaces in large general hospitals. Field interviews and questionnaires were conducted in six typical large general hospitals in Harbin. First, we found that the rates of air environment dissatisfaction with halls spaces and corridor spaces were less than 20%. The air environment satisfaction with corridor spaces was significantly higher than it was with hall space, with an increase of 0.31; however, air environment acceptability was similar for both. Second, air stuffiness was the most important factor affecting air environment satisfaction. At the same time, crowd density and waiting time only affected satisfaction with hall spaces. The threshold for satisfaction with crowd density was approximately 1 person/m². Participants reported the least amount of satisfaction with the quality of acoustic environments and air environments, but these rates of satisfaction were closely related. Finally, in hall spaces, the higher the air environment satisfaction, the lower the anxiety and the higher the pleasure. The air environment satisfaction experienced by younger participants was significantly higher than that of older participants, with an increase of 0.39. In corridor spaces, the air environment satisfaction of patients and females was higher than that of escorts and males, with an increase of 0.62 and 0.31 respectively. Based on these results, this study provides recommendations for optimizing the air environment in large general hospitals.