Building-related symptoms and stress indicators

This study aims to study physiological stress indicators in relation to prevalence of building-related symptoms (BRS) among teachers employed in three selected schools in Copenhagen. Three hypotheses were studied: (i) Perceived psychosocial work environment was associated with BRS; (ii) Perceived psychosocial work environment (job strain) was associated with physiological strain; (iii) BRS was associated with physiological strain. We found a tendency among women of an association between job strain and being BRS positive. Also an association between job strain and physiological strain was observed among women. Being BRS positive was not associated with single physiological stress indicators with the exception of a higher level free testosterone in serum among BRS-positive women.Including physiological stress indicators may be a supplementary measure to questionnaires when studying the association between the psychosocial work environment and building-related symptoms (BRS). In this study, job strain was associated with physiological strain among women. Being BRS positive was not associated with single physiological stress indicators with the exception of a higher level free testosterone in serum among BRS-positive women. This study should be regarded as a preliminary study because of its small number of participants.