Indoor air quality and sick building syndrome symptoms in administrative office at public university

Amalina Abu Mansor; Samsuri Abdullah; Aimi Nursyahirah Ahmad; Ali Najah Ahmed; Mohammad Fakhratul Ridwan Zulkifli; Suriani Mat Jusoh; Marzuki Ismail

doi:10.1016/j.dialog.2024.100178

Indoor air quality and sick building syndrome symptoms in administrative office at public university

Dialogues Health. 2024 Apr 12:4:100178. doi: 10.1016/j.dialog.2024.100178. eCollection 2024 Jun.

Authors

Amalina Abu Mansor¹, Samsuri Abdullah^{1

2}, Aimi Nursyahirah Ahmad¹, Ali Najah Ahmed³, Mohammad Fakhratul Ridwan Zulkifli², Suriani Mat Jusoh², Marzuki Ismail^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Tropical Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, 21030, Terengganu, Malaysia.
² Faculty of Ocean Engineering Technology, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 20130, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia.
³ School of Engineering and Technology, Sunway University, Bandar Sunway, Petaling Jaya 47500, Malaysia.
⁴ Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 20130, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia.

Abstract

Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) is an illness among workers linked to time spent in a building. This study aimed to investigate the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and symptoms of Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) among administrative office workers. The IAQ parameters consist of ventilation performance indicators, and physical and chemical parameters were measured using specified instruments for three days during weekdays. The SBS symptoms were assessed by a questionnaire adopted from the Industry Code of Practice of Indoor Air Quality (ICOP-IAQ) 2010 among 19 employees from the office in East Coast Malaysia. Relationship between past symptoms and present symptoms which are draught (past symptoms) with feeling heavy headed (present symptoms) (r = 0.559, p < 0.05), room temperature too high (past symptoms) was highly correlated with feeling heavy headed (present symptoms) (r = 0.598, p < 0.01) and cough (present symptoms) (r = 0.596, p < 0.01). Room temperature (past symptoms) has a positive medium relationship with cough (present symptoms) (r = 0.477, p < 0.05) and scaling itching scalp or ears (present symptoms) has a relationship between stuffy bad air (r = 0.475, p < 0.05) and dry air (r = 0.536, p < 0.05). There was a significant association between RH with drowsiness (χ2 = 7.090, p = 0.049) and dizziness (χ2 = 7.090, p = 0.049). The association was found between temperature and SBS symptoms between temperature with headache (χ2 = 7.574, p = 0.051), feeling heavy-headed (χ2 = 8.090, p = 0.046), and skin rash itchiness (χ2 = 7.451, p = 0.044). Air movement also showed a positive association with symptoms of feeling heavy-headed (x2 = 8.726, p = 0.021). PM₁₀ has positive significance with SBSS which are feeling heavy-headed (χ2 = 7.980, p = 0.023), and eyer's irritation (χ2 = 7.419, p = 0.038). The conclusion of this study showed that there were positive significant between temperature and relative humidity toward SBSS.

Keywords: Headaches; Indoor air quality; Relative humidity; Sick building syndrome symptoms.