Occupants' satisfaction towards interior design quality at inpatient units of public hospitals in Malaysia: a sustainable development framework

Hospital building is one of the most complex architectures in types and designs for maintaining various regulations, technical requirements and physical environment. It is quite obvious that the physical environment plays an important role in occupants' well-being especially in hospital settings. This study aims to measure the level of satisfaction among users for the public hospitals' interior design quality at inpatient units in the Klang Valley region, Malaysia. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was employed for exploring the occupants' satisfaction. Respondents were found least satisfied with the space planning (mean score = 3.10, sd = 0.84) and furniture (mean score = 3.01, sd = 0.77) from the preliminary analyses. However, safety features (mean score = 3.57, sd = 0.83) were found the most contented aspect for the occupants' satisfaction. Although the respondents seemed to be fairly satisfied with the aspect of privacy (mean score = 3.38, sd = 0.93); however, the qualitative exploration verified differently. This study disclosed the users' level of satisfaction based on the quality of the interior design that will provide useful input for healthcare planners to design better hospitals' environment.