What you enjoy gazing at when you feel well isn’t necessarily what you want to see when you are ill, and people of all ages and cultures tend to be drawn to familiar landscapes, unambiguous images and friendly faces. That, in a nutshell, is what research on patients’ and health care workers’ preferences for art in the health care setting indicates. As a member of the Pebble Project, Sacred Heart at RiverBend is serving as a test site for evidence-based hospital design, including even evidence-based selection of artwork. 

To help guide the selection of art for the new hospital and to add to the body of research about art preferences in the hospital setting, Sacred Heart collaborated with American Art Resources to design and conduct two visual art surveys of its own in fall 2007, one an online survey of employees (nearly 200 took part) and the other an in-person survey of 80 inpatients, divided equally among cardiac, general medicine orthopedic and post-operative/surgical units. In general, the results confirmed earlier research and added some insights, particularly in the comments participants contributed. 

People respond to art in complex ways, and art cannot be easily categorized. By asking about both how patients and employees feel and what they think about a selection of representative paintings, prints and photographs, the surveys gathered input that will help Sacred Heart and other hospitals select artwork more likely to be comforting, orienting and calming to patients and, as a result, help promote their healing. 

Summary of inpatient and employee findings 
When asked how they felt when they looked at the images, whether they would like to have the images hanging in their hospital room, and which images were their favorites, inpatients consistently ranked the following nature images higher than the other nine images in the survey. Employees, too, ranked these as their top choices.
 

The following is a representative sample of comments from patients:

Image 12 (far left image used in patient surveys; left center image used in employee surveys): Dreamy, soothing, serene, peaceful, “has everything in it,” “takes me back to childhood.”

Image 9 (above, center right): Authentic, peaceful, vibrant, fresh, familiar; the scene “evokes memories.”

Image 6 (above right): “Would make you feel good — young animals and flowers.” Natural, outdoors, peaceful: “I’ve always loved animals.”  

Responses to Image 7 (above left) and Image 8 (above right) ranged widely, and the comments both inpatients and employees made help illuminate why some pictures that many of us enjoy while we feel well may not be what we want to see when we are hospitalized. Image 7 was among employees' top picks; it ranked #1 among images employees said they would like to see in their work area and near the top for how they felt when viewing it and whether they thought it was a good choice for a patient room. Among inpatients it was among the least well liked images. While some found it “light,” “airy,” dreamy,” “like being on vacation,” especially among those who live or have lived near the ocean, others (especially some patients) found it frightening or uncertain or even “depressing”: “Desperate feeling, “fear of big tidal wave,” It stresses me out, I don’t know why,” and “A sad picture … looking for husband to return” were among patients’ comments.

Likewise, inpatients and employees had rather opposite reactions to image 8. Patients liked the cheerful colors and theme and ranked it fairly high (but some found it fake-looking, “pasty,” “not like Oregon”). Employees liked it less well, with comments such as “cheesy,” “trite” and “contrived” (in addition to “inviting” and even “awesome!”). 

Inpatients ranked the following three images as those that made them feel the worst and that they were least likely to want on the wall of their hospital room, though five patients selected image #1 as their favorite, with such comments as “I have it, I love it” and “so much to look at.” Likewise, employees ranked the same three images at the bottom, with image 10 the least favorite, though the responses were slightly more positive toward image 11.

Image 11:  “Dark, depressing jumble,” “doesn’t mean anything to me,” colors aren’t “bright and happy.”	Image 10: “Too modern,” “I don’t know what it is.”	Image 1: “Too busy. What is it?” “Don’t like it. Doesn’t make sense.”

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