HOW DOES THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENT AFFECT MENTAL HEALTH WHEN WORKING REMOTELY?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21837/pm.v20i23.1168Keywords:
Indoor Environment, Mental Health, Remote Working, PandemicAbstract
The Movement Control Order (MCO) has forced significant segments of Malaysia’s economy to shut down or scale back operations in a nationwide effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. However, one segment of the population that is perhaps more susceptible to the adverse economic effects of the pandemic is the mental well-being of those who need to work remotely at home. This study expands on previous research by examining workers’ perceptions of remote working practices at home and their impact on a person’s mental condition. The reviewed literature presents four (4) main indoor environmental quality factors: spatial and thermal comfort; noise distraction and privacy; visual comfort; and overall satisfaction with their home and its relation to the work stress level, in addition to the emergence of the new norm of working during the pandemic. This study has shown that the quality of the indoor environment plays an important role in ensuring comfort when working from home, as the practice could have a negative or positive impact depending on the IEQ. From the results, most of the IEQ score values were more than 1, and the mean was the highest, which demonstrates a positive scale. The input from respondents on IEQ also indicates their mental well-being due to the fact that IEQ strongly affects workers’ stress and productivity levels when working from home. This paper recommends extending the study on gender and productivity level, as well as mental well-being (Factor 3), when working from home, and how this relationship may affect an organisation when such a policy is implemented.
Downloads
References
Abdulaali, H. S., Usman, I., Hanafiah, M., Abdulhasan, M., Hamzah, M., & Nazal, A. (2020). Impact of poor indoor environmental quality (IEQ) to inhabitants’ health, wellbeing, and satisfaction. Int. J. Adv. Sci. Technol, 29, 1284-1296.
Anka, A., Thacker, H., & Penhale, B. (2020). Safeguarding adults practice and remote working in the COVID-19 era: challenges and opportunities. The Journal of Adult Protection. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-08-2020-0040
Arif, M., Katafygiotou, M., Mazroei, A., Kaushik, A., & Elsarrag, E. (2016). Impact of indoor environmental quality on occupant well-being and comfort: A review of the literature. International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment, 5(1), 1-11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsbe.2016.03.006
Compton, M. T., & Shim, R. S. (2015). The social determinants of mental health. Focus, 13(4), 419-425. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20150017
Galanti, T., Guidetti, G., Mazzei, E., Zappalà, S., & Toscano, F. (2021). Work from home during the COVID-19 outbreak: The impact on employees’ remote work productivity, engagement, and stress. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 63(7), 426. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000002236
Irawanto, D. W., Novianti, K. R., & Roz, K. (2021). Work from home: Measuring satisfaction between work-life balance and work stress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Economies, 9(3), 96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/economies9030096
Kwallek, N., Soon, K., Woodson, H., & Alexander, J. L. (2005). Effect of color schemes and environmental sensitivity on job satisfaction and perceived performance. Perceptual and motor skills, 101(2), 473-486. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.101.2.473-486
Marmot, A., & Ucci, M. (2015). Sitting less, moving more: the indoor built environment as a tool for change. Building Research & Information, 43(5), 561-565. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2015.1069081
Marques, L., Bartuska, A. D., Cohen, J. N., & Youn, S. J. (2020). Three steps to flatten the mental health need curve amid the COVID‐19 pandemic. Depression and Anxiety, 37(5), 405. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/da.23031
Marzukhi, M. A., Ghazali, N. M., Leh, O. L. H., & Abdullah, Y. A. (2020). The effects of changes to the urban physical environment on mental disorder: Development of a theoretical framework. Journal of ASIAN Behavioural Studies, 5(16), 35-47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/jabs.v5i16.351
Ministry of Health Malaysia. (2017). The National Health and Morbidity Survey 2017, Adolescent Mental Health, Institute for Public Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.
Mujan, I., Anđelković, A. S., Munćan, V., Kljajić, M., & Ružić, D. (2019). Influence of indoor environmental quality on human health and productivity-A review. Journal of cleaner production, 217, 646-657. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.307
Patino, E. D. L., & Siegel, J. A. (2018). Indoor environmental quality in social housing: A literature review. Building and Environment, 131, 231-241. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.01.013
Srinivasan, S., O’fallon, L. R., & Dearry, A. (2003). Creating healthy communities, healthy homes, and healthy people: Initiating a research agenda on the built environment and public health. American Journal of Public Health, 93(9), 1446-1450. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.93.9.1446
Rapoport, A., (1969). House form and culture. New Jersey, Prentice-Hall.
Rapoport, A., (1990). Systems of activities and systems of settings, domestic architecture and the use of space. An Interdisciplinary, Cross-Cultural Study, Kent, S. (ed.), 9-20, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Vischer, J. C. (2007). The effects of the physical environment on job performance: towards a theoretical model of workspace stress. Stress and Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 23(3), 175-184. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.1134
Vischer, J. (2007). Space meets status: Designing workplace performance. Routledge. World Health Organization. (2022). World Mental Health Report: Transforming mental health report. World Health Organization, Geneva. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203087770
Zainal, N. Z., & Hosni, N. (2022). Effects of the urban built environment on mental health: A review. Journal of Cognitive Sciences and Human Development, 8(1), 30-48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33736/jcshd.4398.2022
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Nurul Shakila Khalid, Yusfida Ayu Abdullah, Na’asah Nasrudin, Mohd Fairus Kholid
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright & Creative Commons Licence
eISSN: 0128-0945 © Year. The Authors. Published for Malaysia Institute of Planners. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
The authors hold the copyright without restrictions and also retain publishing rights without restrictions.