Associations between use, activities and characteristics of the outdoor environment at workplaces.

摘要

Today, office work in western societies is more sedentary and more mentally demanding than ever before. This way of working plays a role in the increase in lifestyle diseases related to sedentary routines and stress. Green outdoor environments have been found to motivate physical activity and reduce stress levels. In this study, we therefore considered these environments to have a positive affect on work force health and wellbeing. However, research on the workplace outdoor environment is still limited. To investigate how and why the workplace outdoor environment is used by office workers and the impact of these environments on office workers' health and wellbeing, five research questions were formulated. The questions addressed the use of the outdoor environments; the outdoor activities; encouragement and impediments for going outdoors; characteristics of the outdoor environment, and the impact of workplace outdoor environments on employees' health, job satisfaction and work performance. In order to answer these research questions, we conducted a web-based questionnaire, completed by ( N) 402 office workers from six Danish companies. The results show that 37.8% of the respondents spent time outdoors during their working day, and that the proportion of men spending time outdoors was higher than the proportion of women. Eight outdoor activities were identified, and significant relationships between the outdoor activities and perceived sensory dimensions (PSD) of the outdoor environment were found, indicating that the presence of the dimension 'serene' increased the odds for respondents going outdoors and that five of the eight activities would be performed. Only few significant relationships between outdoor environment use and employee health, job satisfaction and work performance were identified.