Passive smoking, pulmonary function and bronchial hyper-responsiveness among indoor sanitary workers

Pulmonary function parameters of 21 cleaning/sanitary women workers who have never smoked, exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) at work were compared with 34 non-exposed women workers of comparable age and other work characteristics. The studied subjects were subjected to an interview questionnaire, pulmonary function measurements, bronchial responsiveness assessment and clinical chest examination. A higher prevalence of dyspnea was found (42.9%) among exposed compared to (14.7%) among the non-exposed workers (p=0.019), also wheezing (52.4% vs. 11.8%; p=0.001). Pulmonary measurements showed a lower FVC, FEV(1)/FVC and FEF(75) values among exposed compared to non-exposed (p<0.05), and a higher prevalence of borderline bronchial hyper-responsiveness (38.1% vs. 11.8%; p=0.021) in the exposed workers. This study provides evidence of adverse respiratory effects in sanitary/cleaning women workers associated with passive smoking in the workplace. The findings support a stricter implementation measures to protect respiratory health of all workers.