The sick building syndrome (SBS) in office workers. A case-referent study of personal, psychosocial and building-related risk indicators.

The Office Illness Project in Northern Sweden was completed in 1994. It comprised a screening questionnaire study of 4943 office workers and a case-referent study of Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) in 464 subjects. Female gender, asthma/rhinitis, high psychosocial work load, paper and visual display terminal work have all been related in previously published results to an increased prevalence of sick building syndrome symptoms. Date from the questionnaire was used in the study described here, supplemented with information from a clinical examination, a psychosocial factor survey and inspection and measurement building data from the work sites. The results showed that an increased prevalence of the reported SBS symptoms was related to personal factors such as atopy and photosensitive skin, psychosocial conditions and physical exposure factors influencing indoor air quality, for example outdoor air flow rates and the presence of photocopiers. Multivariate analysis was used to achieve the results. Concludes that the rate response relationship between actually measured ventilation rates and the prevalence of perceived SBS symptoms presents strong evidence for the association between IAQ factors and health.