Are COVID-19 mRNA vaccine side effects severe enough to cause missed work? Cross-sectional study of health care-associated workers

Abstract

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2, has claimed 5,587,549 lives worldwide as of January 20, 2022. Fortunately, large-scale vaccination can mitigate the impact of COVID-19 by making the disease milder and less common. Although 75.2% of the United States population has received at least 1 dose of a COVID-19 vaccines thus far, concerns regarding vaccine side effects have contributed to vaccine hesitancy. Furthermore, nearly 50% of adults in the United States are concerned not only about side effects, but about their downstream impact, including missed work.The goal of this cross-sectional study was to investigate the effect of messenger RNA vaccine adverse effects on the propensity to miss work among employees associated with a single, large academic health center.Using Qualtrics, all employees, including faculty, staff, and trainees, of 5 large departments were surveyed to determine whether they received the COVID-19 vaccine and which type, and any symptoms they experienced after receipt of either vaccine dose. We hypothesized that vaccine recipients would be more likely to miss work or feel sick enough to miss work following the second dose.Thirty-seven percent of respondents experienced events severe enough that they needed to miss work from either of the doses, with the majority (27.8%) related to the second dose. These findings are consistent with and expand on the results from the phase 3 trials for Pfizer-BionTech and Moderna, which showed that vaccine side effects were more common after the second dose than after the first dose. Our statistically significant finding was more common among Asians, women, trainees/house staff, and nonphysician clinical employees.With an increasing number of individuals taking the vaccine, employers will need to account for the impact of adverse effects on their employees’ ability to work. These findings will further help organizations better plan for staffing as vaccinations increase to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Impact of Sex and Age on mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine-Related Side Effects in Japan

“…In this study, a higher frequency of COVID-19 vaccine-related adverse symptoms, such as general fatigue, headache, chills, and fever, in females compared to that in males was identified. This was consistent with previous cross-sectional studies ( 15 , 16 ). Moreover, our longitudinal analyses identified longer recovery from side effects in females compared to that in males after each vaccine dose.…”

Vaccination, time lost from work, and COVID-19 infections: a Canadian healthcare worker retrospective cohort study

“…Several other studies also reported that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have had side effects that have prompted many to limit daily activities or miss work post-vaccination ( 20 , 21 , 36 ). Similar to the results reported here on vaccine types, Cohen et al found a significant difference in the proportion of those who reported needing to miss work after the second dose, with 49.4% of those who received the higher dose mRNA-1273 vaccine needing to miss work, versus 26.2% of those who received BNT162b2 ( 37 ).…”

Side Effects after mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine as a Booster in Health Workers

“…Moderna as mRNA vaccine was determined as its effectivity to prevent infection reach 94.1% ( 5 ). It was reported in earlier study, adverse event of Moderna such as pain, oedema, redness, or rash around injection site or systemic symptom like fever and chills ( 6 ). These consequences could disturb the workers and caused missed work ( 6 ).…”