Indoor Air Quality in Benghazi’s Hospitals and Its Impact among Patients

Abstract

Background: Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a very important topic; it contains a variety of factors: temperature, humidity, the presence of chemicals and the quality of outdoor air brought inside are typical metrics used to define IAQ. However, with poor quality usually lead to Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) and other serious symptoms. Aims: This study aimed to investigate Indoor air diseases and their symptoms of SBS among patients in ten hospitals in Benghazi, Libya and focusing on awareness/knowledge of patients and their education level regarding some pollutants and noise pollution. Study Design: This paper is a cross sectional descriptive study. Place and Duration of the Study: The study was conducted in December 2019 to September 2020 in Benghazi, Libya. Methodology: Performed sub analysis statistics have chosen 150 patients randomly in 10 hospitals (polyclinics/health centers) to fill out questionnaire about the most common symptoms are related to indoor air value in hospitals by also using the observational checklist. Results: Mostly females 54% were of age above 46 years, 31.3% of the participants were university education level, 69.3% have suffered from different type of diseases, which are hypertension, diabetes, and asthma, and most pollutants were inducted from vehicle traffic 63.3%. Conclusion: the study indicated the highest contaminates impact and the health criteria in all ten hospitals were under the study, which are; temperature and humidity, PM, other chemical pollutants and noise effect.