Natural Light as Stress Management: Exploring how to design physical environments to reduce stress in dental clinic

Despite modern advances in painless dentistry, patient anxiety, stress, or fear continues to be a persistent problem in today’s dental setting. Equal consideration should also be given to dentists’ psychological experiences in this high-stress environment. Stress in the dentist clinic may ultimately result in a bad experience for the dentist and the patient.

Supportive design theory (SDT) developed by Ulrich (1991) emphasised the importance of the physical environment. SDT indicated that healthcare environments promote well-being if they are designed to foster a sense of control for patients and provide access to positive distractions and access to social support. Among these, the role of natural light in the first two factors is noteworthy. Nevertheless, natural light design in a dental clinic may not be just about reaching a specific light intensity. In the case of dental clinic environments, the design of natural light should be different for clinical and non-clinical spaces, as the psychological and physical needs of occupants are different. It is also worth exploring how natural light can be designed to allow for a good transition and flow of visitors and staff through the various spaces in the dental clinic (both in terms of psychological perception and behavioural action). Besides, the physical elements of the space can also be designed to create a complementary relationship with natural light. Integrating the multidisciplinary knowledge of natural light into the design of the physical environment is a challenge that requires extensive research analysis and integration. Thus, this project attempts to address this problem by provoking a psychological response using natural light as a means and explores how the natural light design changing environments can influence how an individual experiences stress.

The research will summarise the natural light effect on occupants in healthcare facilities by combing and integrating the findings in multiple disciplines, then using modelling and simulation methods to analyse the important components of natural light environment design. Then expanding the supportive design theory by connecting natural light environment design and dental clinic design in a research-led design perspective.

The outcome of this research will be expected to be the design of a new dental clinic in which several typical spaces will be used to explore architectural design approaches to natural light for different psycho-physiological needs.