Investigation on fresh air volume and workers' complain in a clean workshop of pharmaceutical enterprise

Objective To effectively improve the maintenance of fresh air quality in a clean workshop in a pharmaceutical enterprise, the fresh air volume in this workshop was measured and the complain of the workers was surveyed.

Methods  The ventilation facilities were examined in this clean workshop. The wind speed of each fresh air inlet was measured with digital air meter TY-9900 and then the fresh air volume was calculated. The uncomfortable symptom of worker was survey with questionnaire.

Results  In this clean workshop, when the workers using the round hole-plate air supply outlet, the fresh air was supplied downward from the roof. The calculated fresh air volume of some areas, such as packaging room, office rooms, and conference room, was lower than the national standard. The workers had the uncomfortable symptoms, such as suffocation, dizziness, weakness, and fatigue. The authors found 6.45% of workers in the areas with qualified fresh air and 30.30% of workers in the areas with unqualified fresh air had uncomfortable symptom respectively. The Spearman rank correlation analysis showed that there was a negative correlation between the average fresh air volume in each working area and discomfort rate of workers(r=-0.234, P < 0.01).

Conclusion  Lack of enough fresh air in some areas of clean workshops would cause workers'health problem. Several aspects need to be considered to improve the fresh air supply, such as appropriate ventilation volume, good air purification system, reasonable distribution of ventilating facility and daily maintenance.