Prevalence and factors associated with sick building syndrome among healthcare workers

Abstract

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a syndrome that causes negative impact on health, decreases productivity, and increases absenteeism. Typically, the syndrome appears only when you spend time in the building; however, no specific cause or illness can be identified. Healthcare workers have an intensive workload and a different work environment compared to other occupations, and those unique work characteristics may cause sick building syndrome. The objectives of this research are to study the prevalence and factors associated with sick building syndrome in 10 government hospitals in Bangkok, which are under Public Health Regions 5 and 6. The study was a cross-sectional descriptive study. The data were collected from December 2021 to January 2022 by measuring air quality inside 53 hospital rooms and self-administered questionnaires were utilized to obtain the data from 303 healthcare workers who worked in those hospital rooms in which air quality was being measured. The data were analyzed by multivariate, multilevel logistic regression. The results indicated that the prevalence of sick building syndrome was 22.1%, and the most common symptom was neurological symptom (52.2%). Indoor air quality measurements indicated an average temperature of 25.6 °c, average relative humidity of 61.8 %RH, median airflow 0.18m/s, average carbon monoxide concentration 1.2 ppm, average carbon dioxide concentration 694.9 ppm, and average bacteria 296.8 CFU/m3. Identified factors associated with sick building syndrome were using computer for work-related purposes (mOR=4.28; 95% CI: 1.03-17.81), working more than 40 hours per week (mOR=1.91; 95% CI: 1.01-3.63), and healthcare workers with allergy (mOR=1.71; 95% CI: 1.04-2.80). Indoor air quality measurements were found to have no statistically significant difference between sick building syndrome and non-sick building syndrome. However, it was found that most rooms had failed to control indoor air quality to meet the criteria specified by the Department of Health. Therefore, air quality measurements should be regularly performed and the ventilation system should be appropriately improved and monitored, along with arranging a proper workload, reducing computer usage, and monitoring those healthcare workers with allergies.