Utilizzazione di un questionario standardizzato per la rilevazione dello stato di salute e comfort degli occupanti in edifici ad uso ufficio (progetto HOPE)

A building can be defined as "healthy" if it does not cause or aggravate diseases in people living or working inside and a situation of environmental comfort is reported by the occupants. The questionnaire represents an essential tool for the evaluation of health. The Hope European project has studied the health and comfort of occupants in 51 office building in 9 European Countries using a standardized questionnaire to study the sick building syndrome The questionnaire analyses different aspects of the office environment and individual workers. The results are expressed both as the prevalence of single symptoms reported by occupants and as a Building Symptoms Index (BSI 5) that is the average symptoms reported by the occupants related to the office environment based on the 5 most common symptoms.. The questionnaire was administered to 5352 workers. The European average of the BSI5 was 1.44. The highest values were found in Great Britain and Portugal, 1.82 (2.27-0.95) and 1,75 (2.92-1) respectively, while the lowest values were recorded in Denmark and Holland: 0.93 (2.32-0.28) and 1,32 (0.78-1.83). In Italy the BSI5 medium value was 1.33 (1.15-1.50). Sixtyfive % of buildings were found to have a BSI5 lower than 1.5; 33% of the buildings were found to have a BSI from 1.5 to 2.5 while only in one building was a BSI value higher than 2.5 reported. For every ten employees, one and half day is missed each month due to environmental conditions.