Veille documentaire MTPH

Auteur     Maria Michela Gianino
Auteur     Gianfranco Politano
Auteur     Antonio Scarmozzino
Auteur     Lorena Charrier
Auteur     Marco Testa
Auteur     Sebastian Giacomelli
Auteur     Alfredo Benso
Auteur     Carla Maria Zotti
Volume     12
Numéro     8
Pages     e0182510
Publication     PloS One
ISSN     1932-6203
Date     2017
Résumé     OBJECTIVES: To analyze absenteeism among healthcare workers (HCWs) at a large Italian hospital and to estimate the increase in absenteeism that occurred during seasonal flu periods. DESIGN: Retrospective observational study. METHODS: The absenteeism data were divided into three « epidemic periods, » starting at week 42 of one year and terminating at week 17 of the following year (2010-2011, 2011-2012, 2012-2013), and three « non-epidemic periods, » defined as week 18 to week 41 and used as baseline data. The excess of the absenteeism occurring among HCWs during periods of epidemic influenza in comparison with baseline was estimated. All data, obtained from Hospital’s databases, were collected for each of the following six job categories: medical doctors, technical executives (i.e., pharmacists), nurses and allied health professionals (i.e., radiographers), other executives (i.e., engineers), nonmedical support staff, and administrative staff. The HCWs were classified by: in and no-contact; vaccinated and unvaccinated. RESULTS: 5,544, 5,369, and 5,291 workers in three years were studied. The average duration of absenteeism during the epidemic periods increased among all employees by +2.07 days/person (from 2.99 to 5.06), and the relative increase ranged from 64-94% among the different job categories. Workers not in contact with patients experienced a slightly greater increase in absenteeism (+2.28 days/person, from 2.73 to 5.01) than did employees in contact with patients (+2.04, from 3.04 to 5.08). The vaccination rate among HCWs was below 3%, however the higher excess of absenteeism rate among unvaccinated in comparison with vaccinated workers was observed during the epidemic periods (2.09 vs 1.45 days/person). CONCLUSION: The influenza-related absenteeism during epidemic periods was quantified as totaling more than 11,000 days/year at the Italian hospital studied. This result confirms the economic impact of sick leave on healthcare systems and stresses on the necessity of encouraging HCWs to be immunized against influenza.