Master in Environmental Psychology Lillehammer University College (LUC), Department for Social Sciences (ASV)

4. term Master thesis work (30 ECTS) 3. term Optional module Optional module Preparatory project work(10 ECTS) 2. semester Environmental behaviour Cognitive design, visual medias, universal design HiG Advanced quantitative research methods 1. semester Environmental psychology – an introduction Perception and neuroscience Stress, human factors, and occupational health psychology 10 ECTS 10 ECTS

Further information  hil.no/studiekatalog/miljopsykologi

Psychosocial working conditions as a mediator between workplace building quality and “Sick Building Syndrome”? Leif W. Rydstedt Lillehammer University College, Department of Social Sciences (ASV) Lillehammer Norway

Sick Building Syndrome (SBS)  One type of environmental related response mode is the so called Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) - an ailment characterized by a range of various diffuse symptoms, e.g. nausea, fatigue and lethargy, headache, skin and membrane irritation.  The term SBS is somewhat confusing since it is people that become ill – but the causes has been attributed to various problems in building qualities. The problems have mainly been associated with office facilities – although SBS have also been reported from employees in e.g. day care centers and hospitals

Additional facts around SBS  From being virtually unknown SBS quickly become an epidemic all over the industrialized world from the 1980-ies.  The symptoms tends to get worse when the affected person stays in the “sick building” – and to improve or vanish when staying away.  Anyway, SBS is often long-lasting. In a longitudinal study following female SBS patients in clinical treatment, almost half the sample reported unaltered symptom levels over a 7 years period; at the end of the period 25% of the participants were on sick-leave, and another 20% had received disability pensions due to SBS.

SBS and indoor environment  Despite intensive research, covering a wide range of possible causal agents - e.g. damp, chemicals, moisture, indoor temperature, cleaning, crowding, improper ventilation, radiation, lightning - it has not been possible to firmly identify any valid causes in the quality of the indoor environment for the SBS symptoms. SBS have often been reported from facilities that meets all modern requirements on hygiene and comfort standards.

Demographic, Psychosocial & Personality correlates to SBS  Several previous studies have found strenuous psychosocial working conditions (e.g. bad leadership, high job strain) to be firmly related to SBS.  SBS have also been associated been related to trait neuroticism, Negative Affect, and inadequate coping strategies with stress  SBS is more commonly reported by females than by males

Controversies on the causes behind SBS The inability to validate any causes, ifficulties to properly diagnose SBS - along with fact that psychosocial working conditions and person characteristics have shown strong and consistent relations with SBS – have led many scientists and clinicians to question the validity of SBS as a genuine illness condition. The critical voices claims that SBS should be dismissed as an “environmental-related or psycho-form syndrome” – that is, a socially acceptable strategy to express distress with work/life conditions

Controversies on the causes behind SBS  Some previous studies have although found relations between the physical work sites qualities and perceived psychosocial working conditions/ job strain.  Based on these findings a hypothesis has been formulated that bad physical working conditions may create psychosocial discomfort – which may act as a mediating link to SBS Physical factors  psychosocial job strain  SBS

The aim of this cross-sectional study: To examine a possible mediating role of psychosocial working conditions in the relation between the indoor physical work environment and general symptoms associated with SBS

Method  Participants:  2084 (with complete data) British employees from 20 companies – that participated in the third wave of a longitudinal survey on working conditions and health.  62,3% males – 37,7% females; Mean age = 42 years  Various occupational background - 70% white- 30% blue- collars  Median 35 work H peer week

Effort – Reward Imbalance (ERI) Questionnaire (Siegrist, 1996) A well established scale – based on the assumption that an imbalance between high efforts spent in work in combination with low work rewards is the core of job strain (modified Equity Theory); Mean ERI ratio = 0.51 Efforts: 6 items (  =.75) ”I have constant time pressure due to work overload”. Rewards: 11 items (  =.86) “My job security is poor (-)”

SBS features of work sites Outcome: SBS-related symptoms  Perceived quality of physical work environment - 10 item aimed at problems that have been related to SBS - noise, lightning, indoor temperature, humidity, air circulation, pollutions, toxic substances, ergonomic conditions, over- crowed work spaces; M=2,6  Vague symptoms – 13 items, related to SBS; e.g. headache, skin rash, eye infection, tiredness/fatigue, dizziness; (  =.86)

Results A path analysis revealed a direct relation between perceived indoor building quality and SBS symptoms (r=.30; p<.001) - as well as between building quality and ERI (.26; p<.001), which in turn strongly related to the diffuse psychosomatic symptoms (.31; p<.001). See figure next page

Discussion These finding suggests a possible mediating role of perceived psychosocial workload - between indoor building quality and, on the hand, general symptoms of SBS type. According to the proponents of this hypothesis bad housing quality, rather than the psychosocial working conditions per see that is the causal agent for SBS. (This does not although exclude potential main effects from job strain on SBS)

Limitations of the study  It should be perfectly clear that no causal inferences can be drawn due to the cross-sectional design of this study.  Since this study is exclusively based on self-reported data it is likely that common-method variance inflates the relations between the variables  In should also be noted that we do not have information whether any of the work sites has been identified as a “sick building”  Neither do we know if any of participants have been diagnosed with SBS, only the extent to which they report symptoms associated with syndrome

Future research  Future longitudinal studies, controlling for symptoms at baseline are required to establish possible casual links between environmental factors, psychosocial working conditions and SBS-related psychosomatic symptoms.  Additional analyses of the frequencies as well as possible different causal patterns for men/women & different occupational categories would facilitate identification of causes behind SBS reports