Conditions of work versus absenteeism/illness in the nursing job

Abstract

Absenteeism/illness is the worker absence with a medical license. The present paper has the purpose to identify the problems of health that happen to nursing workers in a university hospital, using the index of absenteeism-disease. It was also our objective, to compare the incidence of health problems in relation to the professional category, to the work place and to the genre of nursing workers. It was accomplished a retrospective survey of the absences under medical license, registered in the period of one year. The data was obtained in the human resources of the institution. The indexes of absenteeism-disease were calculated, and their causes were identified. The results show major frequency indexes in Pediatrics (If=0.35) and percentage of wasted time in the Emergency Health Service (Tp=4.19%). The most frequent problems of health happened in the Emergency Health Service, in the Intensive Care Unit, and in Pediatrics, related mainly to the breathing and genitourinary systems, and to the organs of senses. The greatest number of absence caused by health problems occurred among the assistant nurses. There was not associated evidence between health problem and genre. It was concluded that the indexes of absenteeism-disease were very high. Some of the mentioned health problems can be related to the work conditions, and peculiar to nursing job, indicating the need of a deep and differentiated analysis of the several sections of the hospital.