An Investigation of Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) in Workplaces, (Case Study: Engineering Organization Building of Urmia).

Background and objectives: Undoubtfuly, people spend a significant portion of their time in workplaces. Many factors affect the health and well-being of employees. The present study aimed to identify the architectural problems of the environment by examining the symptoms of Sick Building Syndrome and ranking the parameters influenced by five physical factors (thermal comfort, noise, lighting, layout-ergonomics, and decoration). Methods: The present descriptive-analytical research was carried out in the summer of 2021. The statistical population included 52 employees of Urmia Engineering Organization Building based on Morgan's table, the sample size of 46 people was randomly selected. The required data were collected through a questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) and Friedman test by SPSS-25 software. Results: Considering the average ranks, symptoms of fatigue (4.47), muscle pain (5.47), headache (5.87), high stress (6.14), and poor concentration (7.45), along with some defined parameters for each of the factors, including overcrowding and lack of speech privacy (78.12%), the noise of people's conversation (62.93%), improper workplace temperature in winter (58.59%) and summer (49.91%), inappropriate placement of uses and allocation of inadequate space for people and equipment (49.91%) played the most significant role. Conclusion: The results indicated that the inefficient design of the environment and non-observance of ergonomic principles as a result of unprincipled renovations regardless of the nature of the work and its requirements, inappropriate placement of uses, the non-standard distribution of employees in an inflexible environment, lack of speech privacy and crowding were identified as the most important causes of the symptoms.