Sick Leave and its Causes among the Health Care Workers in Alzahra Hospital, Isfahan, Iran, during the Year 2018

The aim of this study was to investigate the sick leave and its causes among the health care workers in Alzahra hospital, Isfahan, Iran.

 The present study was a cross-sectional study conducted at Alzahra hospital in 2018. Subjects were staff of hospital that referred to trusted forensic physician for sickness certification confirmation by census method in one year. After obtaining informed consent, a checklist of demographic and occupational variables, causes of sick leave and confirmation or not was completed by forensic physician. The data were entered into SPSS software, and analyzed using chi-square and independent t tests.

 192 sickness certifications were enrolled the study. The most prevalent sick leave causes of hospital staff were respiratory (21.4%), musculoskeletal (18.8%), gynecology (16.1 %), gastrointestinal (15.1%), and accidents (cuts and fracture) (8.9%) causes, respectively. There was a significant relationship between gender and work experience with the reasons of sick leave (P < 0.05). There was no significant relationship between age, marital status, number of children, education, type of job, type of shift, department, and duration of sick leave with the causes of sick leave (P > 0.05).

The most prevalent sick leave causes among Alzahra hospital staff were respiratory and musculoskeletal disorders. The male staff suffered mainly from musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal problems, hence female staff often suffered from respiratory and gynecological disorders. The least prevalent sick leave causes were accidents (cuts and fracture), and ophthalmological and cardiovascular diseases.