Prevalence and risk factors associated with nonspecific building-related symptoms in office employees in Japan: relationships between work environment, Indoor Air Quality, and occupational stress

Abstract

A nationwide cross-sectional study of 3335 employees was conducted in 320 offices in Japan to estimate the prevalence of building-related symptoms (BRSs) and determine the risk factors related to work environment, Indoor Air Quality, and occupational stress. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires. The prevalences of general symptoms, eye irritation, and upper respiratory symptoms were 14.4%, 12.1%, and 8.9%, respectively. Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that eye irritation was significantly associated with carpeting [odds ratio (OR), 1.73; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.24-2.41], coldness perception (OR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.13-1.45), and air dryness perception (OR, 1.61; 95% CI, 1.42-1.82). General symptoms were significantly associated with unpleasant odors (OR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.13-1.65), amount of work (OR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.06-1.45), and interpersonal conflicts (OR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.23-1.69). Upper respiratory symptoms were significantly associated with crowded workspaces (OR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.13-1.63), air dryness perception (OR, 2.07; 95% CI, 1.79-2.38), and reported dustiness on the floor (OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.16-1.67). Although psychosocial support is important to reduce and control BRSs, maintaining appropriate air-conditioning and a clean and uncrowded workspace is of equal importance.

External eye symptoms in indoor environments

“…Recent epidemiological studies have shown strong associations between low RH and the prevalence of DE symptoms, in agreement with controlled studies.…”

“…The prevalence of DE symptoms is between 20% and 40% in offices depending on the recall period; for instance, 1 week, 4 weeks, and 3 months for aircraft . The shorter the recall period the lower is the prevalence.…”

Sick building syndrome (SBS) among office workers in a Malaysian university — Associations with atopy, fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) and the office environment

“…One limitation is that we did not study job stressors and psychological work environment. These factors are found to be associated with SBS in previous studies (Azuma et al, 2014;Bakke et al, 2007;Marmot et al, 2006;Runeson et al, 2006). However, it is less likely that these factors would be related to clinical parameters such as SPT or FeNO.…”

“…Female gender (Brasche et al, 2001;Stenberg and Wall, 1995), allergy (Björnsson et al, 1998;Sahlberg et al, 2012), personality traits (Runeson et al, 2004) and lower sense of coherence (Runeson et al, 2003) were reported to be associated with SBS. Moreover, unbalanced psychosocial work environment (Marmot et al, 2006;Runeson et al, 2006) and occupational stress (Azuma et al, 2014;Bakke et al, 2007) have been shown to be related to SBS symptoms. Indoor environmental factors associated with SBS include room temperature (Bakke et al, 2008), relative air humidity (Wolkoff, 2008), building dampness (Mendell et al, 2011;Park et al, 2008), ventilation flow (Seppänen and Fisk, 2004;Sundell et al, 2011), microbial exposure such as molds and bacteria (WHO, 2009), microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOC) (Araki et al, 2010;Sahlberg et al, 2013) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) (Takigawa et al, 2012).…”

Self-reported health and comfort in ‘modern’ office buildings: first results from the European OFFICAIR study

“…Up to now, the psychological impact on office workers' well-being is poorly studied and questioned. Indeed, it has been hypothesized that psychosocial work environment is associated with building symptoms (Azuma et al, 2014;Marmot et al, 2006). The psychosocial parameters should be examined when risk factors of health and comfort are investigated.…”