Environmental Psychology Effects on Mental Health Job Satisfaction and Personal Well Being of Nurses.

OBJECTIVE Environmental psychology as a science could be useful in understanding the dissociation between the man and the environment. The aim of this study was to compare mental health, job satisfaction and well-being of nurses who work in hospital environments with different designs. MATERIAL This was a quasi-experimental study, in which 250 nurses filled out the mental health, well-being and job satisfaction questionnaires. They were categorized into 3 groups randomly. Group1 included 63 nurses who worked in an environment without any natural elements; group 2 included 100 nurses who worked in an environment with natural elements and group 3 included 87 nurses who worked in an environment without any psychological and ergonomic design. The last group was only stimulated by demonstrating visual stimulus. Data were analyzed using the ANOVA and Tukey's pursuit statistical method. RESULTS The nurses who were working in an environment without any natural elements reported significantly lower scores on mental health, well-being and job satisfaction compared to those who were working in other groups, with the exception of social functioning. Moreover, depression and anxiety were more common in nurses who were working in environments without any natural elements compared to those in the other groups (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS We can increase job satisfaction, and mental health and well-being of the nurses through the use of natural design and environmental psychology indexes in hospital buildings.