“Patients, especially those anxious about undergoing procedures and tests, respond well to the visual stimulation, finding it reduces their stress. And despite the fact that many hospitals face budget shortfalls, they often can purchase or commission art through funds supported by donations, or those built into budgets for new construction.”
“With studies showing a direct link between the content of images and the brain’s reaction to pain, stress, and anxiety, hospitals are considering and choosing artworks based on the evidence and giving it a higher priority than merely decoration for sterile rooms and corridors.”
“This large-scale study examining the effects of a UK primary care environment on patients and staff shows that an enhanced environment is associated with improvements in patients’ perception of patient–doctor communication, reduction in anxiety, and increases in patient and staff satisfaction.”
“In 2006 a Department of Health Working Group on Arts and Health reported that the arts have ‘a clear contribution to make and offer major opportunities in the delivery of better health, wellbeing and improved experience for patients, service users and staff alike’.”
“The fact that patients frequently express a preference for landscape and nature scenes is consistent with this observation and with evolutionary psychological theories which predict positive emotional responses to flourishing natural environments.”
“In recent years, design for health care environments has begun to include esthetic enhancements in an attempt to reduce stress and anxiety, increase patient satisfaction, and promote health and healing. In this paper, the authors survey the existing research on those elements of the built and natural environment most often asserted by proponents as being inherently healing or promoting health.”