Sick Leave Characteristics Among Nurses of a Referral Hospital During COVID-19 Pandemic

Arezu Najafi; Khosro  Sadeghniiat Haghighi; Esmaeil Mohammadnejad; Seyed Ali Dehghan Manshadi; Nazanin Izadi

doi:10.18502/acta.v59i10.7765

Arezu Najafi Occupational Sleep Research Center, Baharloo Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Khosro Sadeghniiat Haghighi Occupational Sleep Research Center, Baharloo Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Esmaeil Mohammadnejad Department of Medical Surgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Seyed Ali Dehghan Manshadi Department of Infectious Disease and Tropical Medicine, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Nazanin Izadi Center for Research on Occupational Disease, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/acta.v59i10.7765

Keywords: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); Coronavirus; Hospital staff; Sickness absenteeism

Abstract

Hospital-related infections have been widely reported during the Covid-19 outbreak that exposes healthcare professionals to at greater risk of infection. This cross-sectional study was designed to evaluate the frequency of absenteeism in hospital staff during the first and second months of the Covid-19 pandemic, from 26 February until 19 April 2020. Occupational data and sickness absenteeism characteristics were collected from the records of the nursing management department. 304 (17.8%) had sick leave due to coronavirus or corona-like symptoms. Nurses and then nursing aid workers constituted the categories with more frequency of sick leave. The more median days of sick leave were observed among supervisors and midwives. About 80% of participants had typical symptoms of Coronavirus. In conclusion, the median days of sick leave due to coronavirus were not as high as we thought. This could be due to human resource shortage and insufficient knowledge regarding return-to-work guidelines in the early phase of this pandemic.