<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a complex syndrome consisting of non-specific symptoms with an onset associated with subjects’ presence in some modern building and the disappearance of symptoms shortly after they leave it. The effects of SBS may be the result of a series of protective reactions of the human body triggered by various types of surrounding environment, further suggesting that the human response could be based on a three-phase biological model: sensory perception, low degree inflammatory reactions and environmental stress reactions. Besides stress created by the discomfort of people who develop symptoms, SBS is the cause of an extensive loss of productivity, sickness absenteeism, wasted time in complaints with all the legal punitive issues that arise from them. The subjects diagnosed with SBS are hard to follow-up over time due to workers often leaving their jobs and being lost from cohort databases. Achieving a reputation of a “sick building” may prove difficult to rehabilitate even after expensive repairs and upgrades. In extreme cases closure and even demolition can occur. SBS is an evolving concept and this review we will present part of this evolution and what are the major challenges for its definition.</p></abstract>

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a complex syndrome consisting of non-specific symptoms with an onset associated with subjects’ presence in some modern building and the disappearance of symptoms shortly after they leave it. The effects of SBS may be the result of a series of protective reactions of the human body triggered by various types of surrounding environment, further suggesting that the human response could be based on a three-phase biological model: sensory perception, low degree inflammatory reactions and environmental stress reactions. Besides stress created by the discomfort of people who develop symptoms, SBS is the cause of an extensive loss of productivity, sickness absenteeism, wasted time in complaints with all the legal punitive issues that arise from them. The subjects diagnosed with SBS are hard to follow-up over time due to workers often leaving their jobs and being lost from cohort databases. Achieving a reputation of a “sick building” may prove difficult to rehabilitate even after expensive repairs and upgrades. In extreme cases closure and even demolition can occur. SBS is an evolving concept and this review we will present part of this evolution and what are the major challenges for its definition.

Sick building syndrome, a crossroad in modern occupational medicine assessment

Occupational Medicine, Clinical Emergency Hospital “Sf. Ioan”

“Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy

Romanian Journal of Occupational Medicine

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Sick building syndrome, a crossroad in modern occupational medicine assessment"}

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a complex syndrome consisting of non-specific symptoms with an onset associated with subjects’ presence in some modern building...

Sick building syndrome, a crossroad in modern occupational medicine assessment

Published Online: Feb 01, 2019

Page range: 12 - 17

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/rjom-2018-0002

Keywords
sick building syndrome, occupational medicine

© 2018 Bogdan-Alexandru Barbu et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Sick building syndrome, a crossroad in modern occupational medicine assessment

Published Online: Feb 01, 2019

Page range: 12 - 17

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/rjom-2018-0002

Keywordssick building syndrome, occupational medicine

© 2018 Bogdan-Alexandru Barbu et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
sick building syndrome, occupational medicine