A Critical Examination of the Therapeutic Architecture Potentials at the Psychiatric Hospital Yola, Nigeria

Abstract

In recent years, there have been efforts to improve mental health services in Nigeria, including the establishment of metal health policy and mental health action plan in 2013. Despite evidences and researches present that imply that the atmosphere and design of a place can affect the psychology and the mood of humans, there seem to be more drug administration and movement restriction preference over environmental and other inert factors that could contribute to the healing of the psychiatric patients. Hence, this research focused on the survey of the Psychiatric hospital Yola towards exposing the level of application of the therapeutic potentials of the environment to contextually compare with the standards obtainable from previous researches where a qualitative research approach through visual survey was employed. The psychiatric hospital Yola failed below requirement to induce therapy on its occupants, making healing totally dependent on the administration of drugs any other form of therapy. An interview with a psychiatrist exposed a concern of patients taking longer than expected time to heal or response to medication. Consequently, some patients who previously visited the hospital now created level of resistance to be returned for subsequent consultations as some speak of the hostility of the environment.