Privacy, Confidentiality and Facility Criteria in Designing Emer-gency Departments of the Teaching Hospitals of Shahid Be heshti University of Medical Sciences in 2007

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the design of emergency depart-ments regarding to the patients’ and staffʹs privacy, confidentiality and facilities in gen eral teaching hospitals. Methods: Emergency departments of all the general teaching hospitals of Shahid Be heshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran were evaluated in 2007 through both direct observation and interview with hospital authorities, and staff. Rele vant criteria were studied by a 27-item questionnaire including 19 items for facili ties and 7 items for privacy and confidentiality. Extent of emergency depart ments was the last common criterion. Data analysis has been done using t-test and descriptive statistics when appropriate. SPSS Software version 16 was used to facilitate quantitative analysis. Results: Eleven out of nineteen criteria (58%) for the facilities were not found in the emergency departments. Privacy criteria had an overall partially more accept able situation. Only one criterion of privacy and confidentiality was negative for all the emergency departments. It was calm gynecologic and delivery room with spe cific toilet. The mean was 469.6 (SD= 96) square meters for existing extent of emer gency departments and 1461.6 (SD= 262.1) square meters for the ideal val ues (P < 0.01). Conclusion: Privacy, confidentiality and enough facilities should be considered in designing of teaching hospitals for both stuff and patients. Most of them need to be reconstructed based on new national standards.