The impact of COVID-19 on visitors' wayfinding within healthcare centers

• DOI: 10.1016/j.asej.2022.101957
• Publication Date: 2022-09-07T07:09:53Z
• Authors: Elham Mehrinejad ...; Reza Askarizad; Maryam Mehrinejad; Sara Nourmusavi N...; Kathirgamalingam ...
• Keywords: Pandemic; Space Syntax; Social distance; Empirical Research

The novel COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial calamities in developing countries such as Iran, which initially suffered from inadequate infrastructure essential for the control. Due to ongoing development of this malady, healthcare centers are recognized one most significant hotspots within public settings so they directly pertinent physical and mental health visitors. main objective conducting present study is investigate impact on visitors' wayfinding procedure Qa'em hospital, located Rasht, northern Iran. adopted methodology based a comparison between collected data regarding behavior visitors before after outbreak using mixed methods, namely Space Syntax, gate counting, people following, semi-structured interviews. obtained empirical results displayed that were significantly confused hesitant throughout their process pandemic. Indeed, spatial accessibility legibility not found be adequate facilitating Moreover, requirements reconfiguration furniture layout waiting areas, according underlying notions social distancing, became conspicuous pragmatic implications post-pandemic centers.