title: Comprehensibility of universal healthcare symbols for wayfinding in healthcare facilities.
abstract: Healthcare facilities are often complex and overwhelming for visitors, and wayfinding in healthcare facilities can be challenging. As there is an increasing number of global citizens who travel to seek medical care in another country, it is critical to make wayfinding easy for visitors who are not familiar with the language in a foreign country. Among many wayfinding aids, symbols are helpful for those visitors who have limited ability to understand written language. This study tested universal healthcare symbols in the United States, South Korea, and Turkey to compare the comprehension of symbols cross-country and identify predictors of the correct comprehension. To explore statistically significant relationships between symbol comprehension and countries, Pearson's Chi-square tests, logistic regression, and ANOVA were conducted. The test results showed that ten symbols among 14 tested have significant relationship with countries. Results of this study demonstrate that symbol comprehension can be varied significantly in different countries.
authors.affiliation: Oregon State University, 327 Milam OSU, Corvallis, OR 97330, USA. Electronic address: Seunghae.Lee@oregonstate.edu.
authors.forename: Seunghae
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Georgia Southern University, School of Human Ecology, P.O. Box 8057, 1110 IT Drive, Statesboro, GA 30458, USA.
authors.forename: Sibel Seda
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Dazkir
authors.affiliation: Land & Housing Institute, Korea Land & Housing Corporation, 462-2 Jeonmin-Dong, Yuseong-Gu, 305-731 Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hae Sun
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Paik
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Design, Middle East Technical University, Dumlupinar Bulv., Universiteler Mah. No: 1, 06800 Cankaya, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Aykut
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Coskun
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006268:Health Facilities; D006801:Humans; D008123:Location Directories and Signs / Q000592:standards; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D056910:Republic of Korea; D014421:Turkey; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Symbol comprehension; Universal healthcare symbol; Wayfinding