Evaluation of the association between presenteeism and perceived availability of social support among hospital doctors in Zhejiang, China

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p><jats:bold>Background: </jats:bold>This study investigated the association between presenteeism and the perceived availability of social support among hospital doctors in China.<jats:bold>Methods: </jats:bold>A questionnaire was administered by doctors randomly selected from 13 hospital in Hangzhou China using stratified sampling. Logit model was used for data analysis.<jats:bold>Results: </jats:bold>The overall response rate was 88.16%. Among hospital doctors, for each unit increase of the perceived availability of social support, the prevalence of presenteeism was decreased by 8.3% (OR=0.91, P=0.000). In particular, if the doctors perceived availability of appraisal support, belonging support and tangible support as sufficient, the act of presenteeism was reduced by 20.2% (OR=0.806, P=0.000) 20.4% (OR=0.803, P=0.000) and 21.0% (OR=0.799, P=0.000) respectively with statistical differences.<jats:bold>Conclusion: </jats:bold>In China, appraisal support, belonging support and tangible support, compared to other social support, had a stronger negative correlation with presenteeism among hospital doctors. The benefits of social support in alleviating doctors’ presenteeism warrant further investigation.</jats:p>