Detailed Respiratory survey

An outbreak of occupational asthma was identified at a factory where metal working fluids were the most likely cause. The entire workforce was issued with a short questionnaire to screen for respiratory disease. Workers with one or more respiratory symptoms and or weight loss were invited for further assessment at the factory. This consisted of spirometry, clinical opinion and the questionnaire below. The questionnaire includes demographic information, job history and clinical information. To determine if symptoms were work-related, the questionnaire asked whether respiratory symptoms were ‘better’, the ‘same’ or ‘worse’ on both ‘days away from work’ and holidays, and asked for the month and year of onset of symptoms. Those workers suspected of having occupational asthma were asked to complete serial peak flow records and depending on the clinical opinion were either given a clinic appointment immediately or dependant on the serial peak flow record.

The questionnaire has been anonymised, the company name has been replaced by [Company Name], subsiduary companies / subcontractors have been replaced by [Company Name 1] through [Company Name 6] and [Likely start of outbreak] is the date when it is thought that the outbreak started.

resources/outbreak_respiratory_survey.doc