IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i5p2343-d507259.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fit for What Purpose? Exploring Bicultural Frameworks for the Architectural Design of Acute Mental Health Facilities

Author

Listed:
  • Gabrielle L. S. Jenkin

    (Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington 23A Mein St., Wellington 6021, New Zealand)

  • Jacqueline McIntosh

    (School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, 139 Vivian Street, Wellington 6011, New Zealand)

  • Susanna Every-Palmer

    (Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington 23A Mein St., Wellington 6021, New Zealand)

Abstract

Acute mental health care facilities have become the modern equivalent to the old asylum, designed to provide emergency and temporary care for the acutely mentally unwell. These facilities require a model of mental health care, whether very basic or highly advanced, and an appropriately designed building facility within which to operate. Drawing on interview data from our four-year research project to examine the architectural design and social milieu of adult acute mental health wards in Aotearoa New Zealand, official documents, philosophies and models of mental health care, this paper asks what is the purpose of the adult inpatient mental health ward in a bicultural country and how can we determine the degree to which they are fit for purpose. Although we found an important lack of clarity and agreement around the purpose of the acute mental health facility, the general underpinning philosophy of mental health care in Aotearoa New Zealand was that of recovery, and the CHIME principles of recovery, with some modifications, could be translated into design principles for an architectural brief. However, further work is required to align staff, service users and official health understandings of the purpose of the acute mental health facility and the means for achieving recovery goals in a bicultural context.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabrielle L. S. Jenkin & Jacqueline McIntosh & Susanna Every-Palmer, 2021. "Fit for What Purpose? Exploring Bicultural Frameworks for the Architectural Design of Acute Mental Health Facilities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2343-:d:507259
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2343/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2343/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rachel Mair & Susanna Every-Palmer & Fiona Mathieson & Gabrielle Jenkin, 2022. "‘My Work Matters’: A Qualitative Exploration of Why Staff Love Working in Acute Mental Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-12, October.
    2. Katherine M. Boydell & Alexandra Nicolopoulos & Diane Macdonald & Stephanie Habak & Helen Christensen, 2023. "Understanding Protective Factors for Men at Risk of Suicide Using the CHIME Framework: The Primacy of Relational Connectedness," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-14, January.
    3. Jacqueline McIntosh & Bruno Marques & Gabrielle Jenkin, 2022. "The Role of Courtyards within Acute Mental Health Wards: Designing with Recovery in Mind," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-21, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2343-:d:507259. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.