Hamadan University of Medical Sciences Journal of Research in Health Sciences 2228-7795 10 1 2010 06 28 Privacy, Confidentiality and Facility Criteria in Designing Emer-gency Departments of the Teaching Hospitals of Shahid Be¬heshti University of Medical Sciences in 2007 36 41 EN Mohammad-Reza Sohrabi Hossein Alimohammadi Journal Article 2011 06 29 Background: This study aimed to evaluate the design of emergency depart­ments regarding to the patients’ and staff's privacy, confidentiality and facilities in gen­eral teaching hospitals.Methods: Emergency departments of all the general teaching hospitals of Shahid Be­heshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran were evaluated in 2007 through both direct observation and interview with hospital authorities, and staff. Rele­vant criteria were studied by a 27-item questionnaire including 19 items for facili­ties and 7 items for privacy and confidentiality. Extent of emergency depart­ments 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 accept­able situation. Only one criterion of privacy and confidentiality was negative for all the emergency departments. It was calm gynecologic and delivery room with spe­cific toilet. The mean was 469.6 (SD= 96) square meters for existing extent of emer­gency departments and 1461.6 (SD= 262.1) square meters for the ideal val­ues (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.