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Association between Sick Building Syndrome and Indoor Environmental Quality in Slovenian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study
Increased exposure times to various health risk factors and the vulnerability of building users might result in significantly higher prevalence rates of sick building syndrome (SBS) in a hospital setting compared to other indoor environments. The purpose of our study was to assess the association be...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6747401/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31484409 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173224 |
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author | Kalender Smajlović, Sedina Kukec, Andreja Dovjak, Mateja |
author_facet | Kalender Smajlović, Sedina Kukec, Andreja Dovjak, Mateja |
author_sort | Kalender Smajlović, Sedina |
collection | PubMed |
description | Increased exposure times to various health risk factors and the vulnerability of building users might result in significantly higher prevalence rates of sick building syndrome (SBS) in a hospital setting compared to other indoor environments. The purpose of our study was to assess the association between SBS symptoms and measured environmental parameters at a Slovenian general hospital. A combination of a self-assessment study and field measurements was conducted in order to estimate the health risk factors for SBS symptoms among the users of a Slovenian general hospital. The Chi-square test was used to analyse the association between observed health and environmental parameters. The response rate was 67.5%. A total of 12.0% of healthcare workers at hospital wards reported at least six SBS symptoms, 19.0% reported 2–3 SBS symptoms. At the observed hospital wards, the most deviations were recorded for the level of lighting (83.3%), noise level (73.6%), and room temperature (55.3%). A statistically significant association was found between indoor environmental quality and skin-related SBS symptoms (χ(2) = 0.009; p = 0.006). This information will be of great value in defining an integral strategy of environmental health activities aimed at healthier indoor environmental quality in hospitals. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6747401 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-67474012019-09-27 Association between Sick Building Syndrome and Indoor Environmental Quality in Slovenian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study Kalender Smajlović, Sedina Kukec, Andreja Dovjak, Mateja Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Increased exposure times to various health risk factors and the vulnerability of building users might result in significantly higher prevalence rates of sick building syndrome (SBS) in a hospital setting compared to other indoor environments. The purpose of our study was to assess the association between SBS symptoms and measured environmental parameters at a Slovenian general hospital. A combination of a self-assessment study and field measurements was conducted in order to estimate the health risk factors for SBS symptoms among the users of a Slovenian general hospital. The Chi-square test was used to analyse the association between observed health and environmental parameters. The response rate was 67.5%. A total of 12.0% of healthcare workers at hospital wards reported at least six SBS symptoms, 19.0% reported 2–3 SBS symptoms. At the observed hospital wards, the most deviations were recorded for the level of lighting (83.3%), noise level (73.6%), and room temperature (55.3%). A statistically significant association was found between indoor environmental quality and skin-related SBS symptoms (χ(2) = 0.009; p = 0.006). This information will be of great value in defining an integral strategy of environmental health activities aimed at healthier indoor environmental quality in hospitals. MDPI 2019-09-03 2019-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6747401/ /pubmed/31484409 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173224 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Kalender Smajlović, Sedina Kukec, Andreja Dovjak, Mateja Association between Sick Building Syndrome and Indoor Environmental Quality in Slovenian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title | Association between Sick Building Syndrome and Indoor Environmental Quality in Slovenian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_full | Association between Sick Building Syndrome and Indoor Environmental Quality in Slovenian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_fullStr | Association between Sick Building Syndrome and Indoor Environmental Quality in Slovenian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Association between Sick Building Syndrome and Indoor Environmental Quality in Slovenian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_short | Association between Sick Building Syndrome and Indoor Environmental Quality in Slovenian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_sort | association between sick building syndrome and indoor environmental quality in slovenian hospitals: a cross-sectional study |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6747401/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31484409 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173224 |
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