Therapeutic Effect of Outdoor Landscape on Patients’ Healing in the Tertiary Hospitals in Yola, Nigeria

Abstract

Hospitals are designed for the sick to be given medical treatment, it is necessary to design it in such a way that a pleasant surrounding is integrated for the purpose of making healing easier and faster, making landscape elements very important for therapeutic effect to enhanced drug efficacy. This paper is nowhere suggesting that landscape when utilised in isolation possesses the capacity to facilitate healing but that the alteration of landscape components potentially creates healing environment. The aim of this research is to investigate how exposure to natural outdoor environment can contribute to the well-being and recovery of patients. This research explores the necessity and eventual effects of outdoor landscape in hospital environments as well as the existing usage of outdoor landscape for therapeutic effect on patients in the tertiary hospitals in Yola, Nigeria. The novelty of this research is the expected awareness of the use of environmental features natural or manmade to boost environmental psychology of patients in hospital environment through landscape therapy. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to assess and document ways outdoor landscape is incorporated in hospital environments and whether they have been provided for therapeutic effect or not through physical survey aided by the use of checklist and questionnaire. The research methodology employed is a quantitative approach through visual survey. The variables; in this case therapeutic effect of landscape that was pivotal to the survey were soft and hard landscaping elements. However, the tertiary hospitals in Yola, Adamawa state Nigeria is the case study of this research, where the Adamawa State Specialist hospital and the Modibbo Adama teaching hospital were considered for data collection. The findings of this research aim to provide insight and recommendations for incorporating therapeutic outdoor spaces in hospital design to enhance patient well-being and healing experience in Yola, Nigeria.