Windows: do patients need them?

The problem investigated was whether or not the presence or absence of window that hospitalized patients can look out of from their beds makes any difference in their physiological course of recovery after surgery. The study was of a descriptive, retrospective, exploratory nature, utilizing two hundred surgical subjects. On half of the patients had windows and the others had no windows. The season of hospitalization was considered in each case. The subjects were categorized according to type of surgery: hystetectomy, herniorrhaphy, and nasal surgeries. The physiological variables studied were temperature, heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Other factors accounted for were age, sex temperature, heart rate and blood pressure taken at time of admission, smoking and length of hospital stay. Four null hypotheses were developed and applied to each of the three groups of patients. 1. There will be no statistically difference in group mean post operative temperature between patients without windows and patients with windows in either summer or winter. 2. There will be no statistically significant difference in group mean post operative heart rate between patients without windows and patients with windows in either summer or winter. 3. There will be no statistically significant difference in group mean post operative systolic blood pressure between patients without windows and patients with windows in either summer or winter. 4. There will be no statistically significant difference in group mean post operative diastolic blood pressure between patients without windows and patients with windows in either summer or winter. The significance level was present at p?0.05. The statistics used were Analysis of Variance and Analysis of Covariance. The results for the hysterectomy group did not meet the required p?0.05. The hypotheses were accepted. The herniorrhaphy group showed a statistically significant result. Diastolic blood pressure was higher for male herniorrhaphy patients with windows in the summer months (p=0.027). The hypothesis was rejected. The hypothesis concerned with systolic blood pressure and heart rate, however, were accepted. There were no statistically significant results for the nasal surgery group. All hypotheses were accepted. A recommendation for further study is a long term window/no window study using a large population of chronically ill patient who are confined to their assigned beds and lack the mobility of the patients in this study.