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Longitudinal assessment of sensory reactions in eyes and upper airways of staff in a sick building

1994; Elsevier BV; Volume: 20; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0160-4120(94)90132-5

1873-6750

John C. Baird, Birgitta Berglund, Hassan Shams Esfandabad,

Educational Environments and Student Outcomes

This investigation is part of a longitudinal study of the library building at Stockholm University involving a 33-week study period. The aim of this report is to utilize a portion of the questionnaire data (n=1721) in order to study how the members of the library staff n=68) responded to questions regarding sensations in their eyes and upper airways. Responses were given by encircling descriptors which described their perceptions "right now" on the two body sites. The descriptors were chosen from 67 and 76 descriptors used for the eyes and upper airways, respectively. The choices made showed that a somewhat larger portion of the staff had adverse perceptions in the upper airways (76.5%) than in the eyes (69.1%). Half of the staff (54.4%) described adverse effects for both eyes and upper airways. Although a larger number of adverse descriptors was used for the eyes than for the upper airways, more respondents described adverse effects in the upper airways than in the eyes. For the whole group, the positive and neutral descriptors decreased and the adverse descriptors increased from the morning to the afternoon. Generally, the adverse upper-airways descriptors increased in frequency while the adverse eyes descriptors increased selectively and thus changed the frequency pattern. The predominating adverse effect described for all conditions is a feeling of "dryness". Cluster analyses based on the choice frequencies of eyes and upper-airways descriptors resulted in three groups of respondents: (1) A building-sensitive group who had adverse perceptions and are suspected SBS persons; (2) a moderately sensitive group whose perceptions tended to be adverse and who are suspected of reporting descriptors that are unrelated to the building and reflect their health status of the day; (3) a building-insensitive group whose perceptions were neutral or slightly positive.