Patient’s thermal comfort assessment of a government hospital during the warm-humid season

Thermal comfort is vital in Bangladesh\u27s fast-growing built environment, especially during the warm-humid season. In a developing country such as Bangladesh, the health sector often overlooks the patient\u27s well-being due to financial and organizational constraints. Literature suggests that there has been a substantial research gap in the thermal comfort assessment of government hospitals in Bangladesh. This study aimed to understand the patient\u27s perception of indoor thermal conditions in mechanically ventilated hospital wards and identify their comfort temperatures in the studied context. The data were collected from a questionnaire survey of 200 adult patients (aged 20-40 years) of medicine and surgery wards during the warm-humid season (June-September) along with objective measurements of their thermal environments in a case study hospital. Although all the objective measurements were above ASHRAE recommendations, 45.25% of patients found their thermal environment acceptable due to acclimatization and adaptive behaviour. Through a linear regression analysis, the patients\u27 comfort range was between 28.2\ub0C and 31.8\ub0C, while the comfort temperatures from linear regression and Griffiths method were 30\ub0C and 29.83\ub0C, respectively. However, the \u27preferred\u27 temperature was 29.65\ub0C, which is slightly lower than the comfort temperature, proved the thermal adversities during the warm-humid periods are quite well tolerated by the patients due to adaptation and acclimatization