Office characteristics and dry eye complaints in European workers–The OFFICAIR study

AbstractObjectivesOcular discomfort is a prevalent health complaint in offices. It is hypothesized that, in addition to individual and occupational factors, the buildings' indoor environment may affect eye complaints. However, insight in potential building-related causal factors, needed to allow development of effective prevention strategies in building design, operation and maintenance is limited. This study aimed to investigate the relations between modern office building characteristics and dry eye complaints.MethodsComprehensive characteristics of 167 office buildings in eight European countries, were linked to questionnaire data from 7441 office workers. Multilevel modeling was applied to explore relations between building characteristics and self-reported dry eye complaints, in a cross-sectional study.ResultsAmong office workers investigated, 34% declared dry eye complaints during the past four weeks. Majority of workers (91.2%) experiencing these symptoms, reported improvement on days away from the office. After full adjustment, the regression model revealed a significant increased risk for: proximity (