Relationship between inpatient satisfaction and nurse absenteeism: an exploratory study using WHO-PATH performance indicators in France

Publié le 27 mars 2012 • Catégorie(s) : Conditions de travail et santé psychologique, En accès libre • Mot(s) clef(s) : personnel infirmier

Auteur    Leila Moret
Auteur    Emmanuelle Anthoine
Auteur    Cecile Paille
Auteur    Sophie Tricaud-Vialle
Auteur    Laurent Gerbaud
Auteur    Alexandra Giraud-Roufast
Auteur    Philippe Michel
Auteur    Pierre Lombrail
Résumé     BACKGROUND: Indicators describing results of care are widely explored in term of patient satisfaction (PS). Among factors explaining PS, human resources indicators have been studied in terms of burnout or job satisfaction among healthcare professionals. No research work has set out to explore the effect of absenteeism on PS scores. The objective of this study was to explore interaction between rate of absenteeism among nurses and PS results. METHODS: France has taken part in a project named PATH (Performance Assessment Tool for Hospitals) of the World Health Organization, aiming to develop a tool for the assessment of hospital performance. In the first semester 2008, 25 volunteering short-stay hospitals (teaching, general and private) provide complete data on nurse short-absenteeism (periods of up to 7 consecutive days of sick leave) and on PS (a cross-sectional postal survey using a standardized validated French-language scale EQS-H exploring « quality of medical information » (MI) and « relationships with staff and daily routine » (RS)). A multi-level model was used to take into account of the hierarchical nature of the data. RESULTS: Two thousand and sixty-five patients responded to the satisfaction questionnaire (participation rate: 40.9%). The mean age of respondents was 58 yrs (+/-19), 41% were men. The mean duration of hospitalisation was 7.5 days (+/-11.1). The mean absenteeism rate for nurses was 0.24% (+/-0.14). All the PS scores were significantly and negatively correlated with rate of short-absenteeism among nurses (MI score: rho = 0.55, p < 0.01), RS score rho = 0.47, p = 0.02). The mixed model found a significant relationship between rate of absenteeism among nurses and PS scores (MI: p = 0.027; RS: p = 0.017). CONCLUSION: Results obtained in this study show that short-term absenteeism among nurses seems to be significantly and negatively correlated with PS. Our findings are an invitation to deepen our understanding of the impact of human resources on PS and to develop more specific projects.
Publication    BMC Research Notes
Volume    5
Numéro    1
Pages    83
Date    Jan 31, 2012