Smoking habits, atopy, and prevalence of sick building syndrome symptoms among office workers in Norway

Abstract

The relative influence of sex, atopy, smoking habits, and age on reported sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms among office workers was investigated through questionnaire studies among 1293 employees in 10 nonindustrial buildings. The occurrence of atopy among the office workers was not found to be different from that of the general population. Both sex and atopy were found to be important for the prevalence of SBS symptoms. The prevalence of symptoms was higher among atopic individuals than among nonatopics, and higher among females than among males. While sex was found important for some symptoms, atopy was important for all of them. Statistically significant differences in the prevalence of symptoms between smokers and non-smokers (i.e., never smokers) were not found. The results indicated interrelations between smoking and atopy, with enhanced prevalence of some symptoms. Age of the persons were also included in the present analyses. Different ways of grouping age indicated different trends in associations between age and the prevalence of symptoms, but the study did not show any unambiguous associations between the age and the prevalence of symptoms.