The critical incident technique as a method to understand the impact of healthscapes on patient experience

Abstract

This article aims to explore the Critical Incident Technique as a useful method to understand the impact of healthscapes on patient experience in maternity contexts. In this respect, 39 indepth interviews were conducted with various maternity stakeholders—mothers, midwives, heads of midwives, and senior managers. As the journey of (soon-to-be) mothers is technically and emotionally complex, and as many critical touchpoints must be managed carefully to ensure a smooth experience, the key challenge during the interviews was to find a way to directly and indirectly discuss healthscape elements influencing the patient journey with the interviewees. Therefore, the authors explore the potential gains of the Critical Incident Technique for architectural research.