The Benefits of Brief Exposures to Urban Nature for Healthcare Workers

Fatemeh Saeidi-Rizi (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

With growing urban populations and increased scrutiny over budgets and time, healthcare workers are under increasing pressure to deliver high-quality care. This is while their job is very critical and requires to be alert and efficient. How might healthcare workers respond to these demands while they must spend the majority of their time inside the hospital and clinics? One possible way is to take an occasional break in a green setting that allows them to restore and recharge their attention and reduce the anxiety and stress that they are encountering.

To explore this possibility, we conduct an experiment which healthcare workers will randomly assign to walk three times a week in an urban green space or urban space that lacked vegetation. We collected data using a controlled randomized experimental design with 50 participants. Eligible participants were chosen among the intern doctors and nurses working at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH). They randomly assigned to an urban group and a nature group. Each participant in each group walked three times for 40 minutes in one of the assigned environments during a one week. During the walk, participants wore a GPS sensor which recorded the path they had walked and showed heart rate variability (HRV). After each walk participants were required to answer three online questionnaires (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Attentional Functioning Index and Affect Grid). Preliminary analysis reveals a significant difference in attention and anxiety levels between the two groups (urban walk and nature walk), suggesting that even a short contact with nature in an urban setting can promote recovery from mental fatigue and reduce anxiety level and stress. This outcome has important application for healthcare practitioners who work under stressful conditions, and whom a mistake can have life-altering consequences.