Designing developing and evaluating the acceptability of novel adaptive garments for indoor patients from multi speciality government and private hospitals

Abstract

Hospital garments worn by patients have been ignored by scholars and designers alike. There has been some work on the subject of patients garments but the recommendations have not been tested or adopted in real clinical scenario. Garments commonly issued to the patients taking admission in government and private hospitals for some ailment, intervention or tests have several issues to be resolved. The objective of the research work was three-fold. Firstly, the empirical quantitative research was conducted among five hospitals of the Tri-City (Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali) to identify shortcomings of existing patients garments and evaluate the acceptability of existing patients garments among Doctors, Nurses and Patients. Secondly, a prototype was developed incorporating salient features derived from the data collected. Thirdly, the prototype design was tested in real clinical situations and data was obtained from the different stakeholders. The quantitative and qualitative data thus obtained was critically analysed, which revealed that the prototype of Novel adaptive patients garments was found to have greater acceptability compared to the existing patients garments. The data findings also provided several inputs for future research potential. newline