Study on indoor air quality and sick building syndrome among staffs in library at Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is an illness that occurs among occupants that appear to be linked to time spent in a building. The causes of SBS can be various but it has a significant relations to indoor air quality (IAQ) of the building itself. This study was focused to overcome the health problems among occupants in a workplace that was affected by air conditioning system of the building. Hence, this study was carried out to identify the relationship between IAQ and SBS among occupants in main campus library of Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM). Fifty-four staffs of the library had responded to self-administered questionnaire of commonly reported symptoms of SBS such as eye and nose irritation, cough, fatigue, nausea, headache and sore throat. Objective measurement for the IAQ level such as air temperature, air velocity, carbon dioxide (CO2), particulate matter (PM2.5) and relative humidity (%RH) were conducted at the working unit of the library. These were conducted on October to November 2014. The IAQ parameters were compared to industry code of practice (ICOP) and it was found that CO2 and PM2.5 were within the standard whilst the rest of the parameters were slightly out of the range. There was prevalence of SBS in the building (72.2%) and of all the reported symptoms, headache, dizzy and heavy headache was the most reported symptoms in this study (59.2%). There were correlations between each IAQ parameters and SBS symptoms. This study was able to increase awareness on the importance of maintaining the air conditioning system in order to avoid further health problems to the occupants.