Personality, Stress, and Indoor Environmental Symptomatology

Abstract: The sick building syndrome (SBS) comprises eye, nose, skin, and throat symptoms, headache and fatigue. Gender, personality aspects, and psychosocial factors at work have lately been at focus in health research. The main aim of this thesis was to investigate the relationships between SBS and personal factors, personality traits, and psychosocial work stress. Two different populations were studied: a cohort of 195 subjects working in suspected “sick buildings” followed 1988-1999, and a random sample of 695 subjects from the Swedish population, 20-65 y. Two personality scales were used; the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP) and the Sense of Coherence (SOC). Two stress questionnaires were used: the 3-dimensional demands-control-support model (DCS) and the Assessment of Perceived Psychosocial Work Environment (PPWE). SBS and personal factors were assessed by a postal symptoms questionnaire and a symptom score (SC) was calculated. Personality was assessed by means of two verbal personality scales, the KSP and the SOC. Females in problem buildings had more SBS than men, and females had a lower SOC and more anxiety and aggressivity in the KSP. Females and males in the general working population reported differences in psychosocial work environment. Moreover, the associations between personality traits and SBS, and between DCS and SBS, differed between males and females. Over all, the investigated occupants of suspected sick-buildings were within the normal range for both KSP and SOC norms. However, those with symptoms showed prominent personality vulnerability, especially in anxiety, aggressivity, and lower SOC, compared to those that were not reporting symptoms. Female gender, low age, asthma, and a history of atopy were related to SBS in the general working population. A combination of low social support and either passive, strained, or active work situation, as well as a combination of high social support and active work situation, were associated with SBS. In conclusion, measurements of personality and psychosocial work environment could be of value in future studies on environmental syndromes. Moreover, the demans-control-support model can predict SBS, but in a more complex way than indicated by earlier research.