Refusal to take a sick leave as an estimate of the phenomenon of presenteeism in Poland

Abstract

IntroductionAbsenteeism and presenteeism are two main phenomena related to health problems and professional activity. Presenteeism is the involvement in a professional activity despite being ill. The purpose of the current study is to estimate the prevalence of presenteeism in Poland on the basis of medical records and to explore associations between presenteeism and patients’ age, gender and type of medical problem. Another purpose is to provide estimates of the length of sick leave if it was accepted.ResultsThe amount of patients who refused to take a sick leave was 27.4%. There was a minor relationship between the refusals and gender (slightly higher in men) as well as strong effects of the age of patients (periods of sick leave were longer in older patients) and ICD-10 diagnosis (largely in acute diseases of the upper respiratory tract). The estimated number of days spent on sick leave in the group of patients that refused to take it, assuming that they made a different decision and complied to it, was in the range between 5 and 10 days.DiscussionThe prevalence of presenteeism in Poland is relatively high. Since the largest proportion of refusals took place in the case of potentially contagious diseases, the negative impact on productivity may be even higher. Even though the relationship between presenteeism and wages remains unclear, the remarkable increase of wages in Poland within the last 20 years may explain the propensity to work despite being ill. Further research needs to consider the simultaneous use of medical records and self-measured productivity loss.Materials and MethodsThe current study is based on data from medical records concerning 550,360 patients aged 19–64. Associations between refusals to take a sick leave and patients’ age, gender, as well as diagnosis in terms of ICD-10 (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems), were tested. Linear regression analysis on the data acquired from the patients who accepted to take a sick leave were further used to estimate the possible length of sick leave in the group of patients that refused to take it.

A systematic review of infectious illness Presenteeism: prevalence, reasons and risk factors

“…Colleagues would think they were “weak”; 4. Pressured to repay colleagues for coverageGender, training yearJuszczyk 2018 [29]35% (average for all RTI infections, in a period of 14 months)Kobayashi 2016[30]53.7% (during 3-month period)LaVela 2007 a,b,c [31]86% (during influenza season) Perceptions of institutional control measures (no droplet precautions, no restriction of staff movement, contact between ill patients and other patients not restricted, no infection control measures) , influenza and vaccine related behaviourMartinez 2012 a,b,c [32]8.1 days a year attended work with infection (nr)Mitchell 2017 a,b,c [33]59.1% (past 2 months) 97% (during study period)Training yearMossad 2017 a,b,c [34]92% (during influenza season) Gender (female), age (younger), patient typePerkin 2003 a,b study 1 [18]84.9% (1993, past 6 months)1. Consultant pressure; 2.…”

Risk factors associated with respiratory infectious disease-related presenteeism: a rapid review

“…Of the 54 included studies, 44 were cross-sectional studies (see Additional file 2). Study locations were North America (n = 32) [5,, Asia (n = 9) [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], Europe (n = 7) [51][52][53][54][55][56][57], Australia (n = 4) [58][59][60][61], worldwide population (n = 1) [62], and an unspecified location (LinkedIn members) (n = 1) [63]. See Figure 2 for the distribution of included studies by country.…”

“…The sample size ranged from 14 to 550,360, ages ranged from 18 [11,27,30,32,35,36,38,47,53,59], common cold or RID-type symptoms such as cough and sore throat (n = 7) [21,34,45,55,56,60,63], COVID-19 (n = 4) [12,41,50,51], breath infections (n = 1) [54] and streptococcal infection ( n = 1) [13].…”

“…Six studies reported that prevalence of presenteeism ranged from 14.1% to 55% for respondents with RID confirmed by laboratory test or clinical diagnosis [13,14,[51][52][53]58]. Prevalence ranged from 6.6% to 100% for symptoms of RID (suspected or subclinical) in 27 studies [15-18, 20-27, 29, 30, 37-44, 47, 49, 50, 57, 59].…”

“…Six studies reported that prevalence of presenteeism ranged from 14.1% to 55% for respondents with RID confirmed by laboratory test or clinical diagnosis [15,16,[53][54][55]60].…”