Supuck van der Hoeven ^1* Tanut Waroonkun ¹ Karn Wejaphikul ¹ Jutamat Chotirat ² Nitchakarn Pittayaporn ¹

• ¹ Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
• ² Walailak University, Tha Sala District, Thailand

Physical environment factors in healthcare facilities play important roles in user health and well-being, especially among healthcare workers. This research aimed to study the problems, prioritization, and in-depth details of each physical environment factor affecting the stress levels of medical staff. This study also intent to discover built environment factors that influences medical staff stress level through the involvement of medical staff. Moreover, the examination and comparison of physical environment factors affecting the mental health and stress of the staff working in out-patient and pediatric wards will be presented. The three-step data collection process was used: physical environment observation by using a checklist, survey by using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) questionnaire and individual interview. Data was collected from 16 medical staff in the pediatric out-patient ward and 17 medical staff in medicine out-patient ward. The observational findings showed that the two out-patient wards had similar environmental problems. AHP ranking findings illustrate that acoustics, privacy and accessibility were issues of concern by both out-patient ward medical staff. Four different themes emerged from the analysis of the medical staff interviews. Two topics of design recommendations were provided to reduce medical staff stress: improve working environment to decrease stress, improve space management. Identifying factors affecting workers' performance and well-being in healthcare facilities