Abstract
Clinical studies were undertaken in hospitals to investigate the effects of various fluorescent lamps currently available on the colour appearance of skin by determining their influence on clinical diagnoses and judgements of perceived confidence in those decisions. The Department of Health were interested in the suitability of high-efficacy, narrow-band emitting lamps which offered savings in power and hence savings in revenue costs. A range of pathologies having different skin colour appearances were seen in the Dermatology Department, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and pathologies having systemic colour effects in the Special Care Baby Unit, Guys Hospital, London. A lighting appraisal was also carried out in a continuing-care geriatric ward at Ashford General Hospital, Kent. The Oxford experiment lasted for seventeen weeks and involved twelve clinicians and 248 Caucasian patients. Forty-nine different pathologies were seen. The Guys experiment lasted seven and a half days during which time one clinician made forty observations involving seventeen babies, most of whom were Caucasian, having one or more of three different pathologies. The Ashford experiment lasted three weeks when fourteen senior nursing staff made general assessments of the lighting in the ward. Physical measurements of the colour of diseased and healthy skin were made during the Oxford and Guys experiments. This paper, the first of three, gives statistical analysis of the results indicating that clinicians and nursing staff are satisfied with lamps having a correlated colour temperature of around 4000 K and that certain narrow-band emitting fluorescent lamps can be used as alternatives to the lamp already approved and in service.
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