Creating micro-restorative environments for healthcare professionals

Stress is the "Health Epidemic of the 21st Century" according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Healthcare is a highly stressful profession worldwide with professionals working under pressure and being exposed to stress and to emotional and cognitive fatigue, potentially resulting in burn out. In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) is particularly prone to these issues, with staff working long hours, having short breaks and limited access to outdoor nature. The NHS is currently facing challenging times due to a shortage of staff, high demand of use, and financial constraints. Therefore, helping health professionals dealing with this crisis is fundamental to avoid further absenteeism due to ill health. Providing the best environment possible for professional carers is important in order for the patients to get better, as healthy carers help patients get back to good health. Otherwise, not only suffering from exhaustion, the doctors who are burn-out have a lack of empathy for their patients, treating them like objects and also suffer from low self-esteem.

Providing a restorative environment for staff is one method of avoiding such outcomes. Restorative environments are places where healthcare professionals can go, even if only for short periods of time during their working day, to relax and restore, to prevent stress and fatigue. Literature shows that nature has a number of restorative properties, being able to help individuals with emotional and cognitive restoration and with the prevention of increased fatigue and stress levels. From this research, some high profile companies, such as Google, Apple or Amazon, have implemented natural environments into their workplaces to benefit their employees. Could the incorporation of some natural elements to the work environment of healthcare professionals have an impact on their own health and well-being, therefore on their stress levels, avoiding them to be fatigued and burned-out?

The aim of this PhD is to help healthcare professionals de-stress to avoid burn out by creating micro-restorative spaces in their workplace, that is brief sensory contact with nature, as through a window, in contemplating a painting, in listening to music or on a television. Potential restorative qualities of natural environments suitable for healthcare settings and professionals will be identified and utilised to suggest a design for a dedicated space where staff can recover physically and psychologically.

The research questions include:
. What are the benefits of nature and their restorative potentials for healthcare professionals?
. What kind of restorative environments can be created or applied to healthcare workplaces?
. Can exposure to simulated natural environments be restorative for healthcare professionals at work?
By accepting that nature is beneficial to restore stressed individuals, this research will apply and test if nature can also be restorative for healthcare professionals and if nature can be implemented in healthcare facilities. A qualitative study will be conducted with healthcare professionals to identify their work related stressors and current coping strategies. This research will focus on studying and identifying the stressors where nature can have beneficial properties in helping prevent further stress and fatigue; and then on exploring and suggesting some potential "nature-centred" solutions. For each solution, an experimental study will be conducted on stressed students to test the potential improvements. If feasible, all confirmed natural elements that improved students stress levels will be implemented in a purpose built "pod" and tested in a healthcare environment.