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PubMed1998

Predictors of severity of absenteeism in children with anxiety-based school refusal.

Examined possible relations among sociodemographic, clinical, and familial variables and level of school absenteeism in children with anxiety-based school refusal. These children exhibit a great deal of variability in the severity of school refusal, with some youngsters missing only an occasional day of school, whereas other exhibit pervasive school absenteeism. Participants were 76 children referred for treatment of anxiety-based school refusal. Children and a parent completed a structured clinical interview (Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children) and self-report measures that assess children's levels of fear (Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised), trait and somatic anxiety (Modified State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children), and depressive symptomatology (Children's Depression Inventory), as well as family environment characteristics (Family Environment Scale). Regression analyses revealed that older age, lower levels of fear, and less active families were primary predictors of greater levels of school absenteeism.

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PubMedDate not supplied

Taming the "no-show" tiger: decreasing the rate of absenteeism at educational programs.

A multidisciplinary staff development department developed a continuous quality improvement project to study the consistently high absentee rate for scheduled training and its relationship to the class registration process. Data were collected using a 9-question survey of students who failed to attend scheduled training. Findings show that changes to the class registration process resulted in a decrease in the number of absentees under the control of the staff development department from an average of 43% to 6% by the end of the year-long review period. The overall absentee rate stabilized at 20% and has been established as the benchmark for this setting.

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PubMedDate not supplied

Putting stress into words: the impact of writing on physiological, absentee, and self-reported emotional well-being measures.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Inhibiting or holding back one's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors is associated with long-term stress and disease. Actively confronting upsetting experiences can reduce the negative effects of inhibition. The present study describes a unique approach to aid individuals in dealing with psychological and emotional issues that they must often face. METHODS: Forty-one of the 81 university employees who were participating in a wellness program agreed to participate in the present study. Subjects were randomly assigned to write about either personal traumatic experiences (n = 23) or non-traumatic topics (n = 18) for 20 minutes once a week for four consecutive weeks. RESULTS: Results indicate that individuals who wrote about upsetting personal experiences evidenced significant drops in selected blood measures compared to those who wrote about non-traumatic topics (e.g., for SGOT: 4.0% drop among traumatic topic group versus 13.1% increase among non-traumatic topic group, ANOVA p = .029; for SGPT: 24.5% drop versus 7.7% increase, p = .001). During the month of writing, traumatic topic group subjects evidenced a 28.6% reduction in absentee rates from work relative to the eight months before the experiment compared with a 48.5% increase in absentee rates among non-traumatic topic subjects (p = .04). Subjects low in emotional inhibition evidenced the greatest reductions in absentee rates following personal disclosure compared to those high in emotional inhibition (p = .011). DISCUSSION: The proposed writing strategy offers a unique tool for health promotion practitioners.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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PubMedDate not supplied

Absenteeism: causes and cures.

Absenteeism can be categorized as either uncontrollable or controllable. Uncontrollable absences include family illness, accidents, jury duty and unexpected emergencies. A typical controllable absence may be dissatisfaction with the job. No matter which type, absenteeism is disruptive to the organization, reduces the quality of patient care and raises operating costs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has established a standard for comparing the rate of absenteesim with other departments or organizations. The rate is equal to the number of days absent times 100, divided by the number of days worked. Four percent or more is considered excessive. Absence policies are often not used for the purposes they were intended. Managers may want to take a critical look at their policies, rather than accept abuse as routine or over-hiring staff to make up for absent staff. If, in fact, it's time to change your policy, you'll want to run possible changes by a legal advisor. You may also want to take a look at your corporate culture. Is it encouraging absenteeism? One company that paid employees who didn't use their sick time had to eliminate this benefit for budgetary reason. Its average sick time then increased 60%. You may want to use your culture to spread corporate norms. Employees are expected to be at work: those who are there on the job are more likely to receive promotions, for example. Paid-leave banks have been introduced by many companies to allow broader time-off flexibility for employees. Such a bank includes holidays, sick and vacation time, grouped together for use by the employee. A final word: employees will rise or sink to the level of your expectations.

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PubMed1955

Sickness absenteeism.

In this paper, sickness statistics are discussed, with special reference to the differences between medical statistics and those of the sickness benefit organizations. Special attention is paid to the comparability of data from different sources.The distribution of sickness absence among workers appears to be approximately similar to that of a chance event (Poisson distribution). This conclusion applies to pre-war years as well as to the post-war period. Although in the latter period the annual average of sickness absences per worker is much greater, there are no indications that the increase in the frequency rate has to be attributed to specified groups of workers; all workers are equally responsible.The high disability rate cannot be accounted for today by causes such as malnutrition, so the phenomenon must be due to a lowering of the standards by which incapacity for work is judged. Since it is the family physician who sets these standards for the worker, it follows that it is he who is largely responsible for the increased rate of sickness absenteeism. The fact that social insurance has concealed the economic consequences of disabling illnesses from the doctor as well as from the patient is one of the reasons why physicians have tended to relax their disability standards.Family physicians practising under favourable and almost identical conditions within the framework of an industrial health centre may, nevertheless, show considerable differences in attitude. When disability rates were computed separately for the practices of nine general practitioners in the full-time employment of the Medical Department of Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken, Eindhoven, Netherlands, the results showed that there was no common opinion among the doctors with regard to standards of disability. A closer examination of the available data allows the conclusion to be drawn that it is in the power of medicine to reduce sickness absenteeism substantially without damaging the worker's health.Finally, some proposals are made for promoting research on sickness absenteeism and on the diagnosis of disability.

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PubMed1992

[Study of absenteeism in hospital workers].

The sick leaves from hospital workers involved in health care or in administrative positions at a hospital center in Santiago were analyzed. Absenteeism was 3.59% for health personnel and 2.25% for administrative staff. Absenteeism was higher in females, 5.1 and 2.7% respectively, compared to figures below 2% for males. Work accidents and professional diseases cause 0.5% absenteeism. Prevalence of absent workers amounted to 11% in females and 7% in males (15.8% and 8.4% among health workers, 6.5% among administrative staff). The mean duration of sick leaves was 7.3 days, 2 days higher in females compared to males. Diagnosis underlying the sick leaves were not different between health workers and administrative staff.

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PubMed2007

Impact of vitamin A supplementation on health status and absenteeism of school children in Sri Lanka.

The objective of this study was to determine the impact of Vitamin A supplementation on health status and absenteeism of school children. A randomized double blind placebo controlled trial over a period of 13 months was conducted in a rural area of Sri Lanka involving 613 school children attending Grades 1-5 (aged 5 to 13 years). Children were assigned to either 200,000 IU of Vitamin A (n=297) or placebo (n=316) once every 4 months. Socio-demographic data were obtained at baseline, and anthropometry and haemoglobin concentrations were assessed at baseline and post intervention. Serum vitamin A concentrations were assayed by HPLC in a subgroup of children (n=193) before administration of each dose. School absenteeism was recorded. The two groups of children were similar at baseline in all variables. The subgroup of children was comparable to the main study population. The prevalence of vitamin A deficiency (< 20 microg/dL) in the subgroup of children was 8.2%. Changes in anthropometric indices and haemoglobin concentrations were similar in the two groups. The major causes for absenteeism were non-health causes and supplemented children lost a fewer number of school days due to illness than placebo children (p=0.053). Vitamin A concentrations improved with each dose and the improvement was greater with better compliance. Vitamin A supplementation with 200,000 IU every 4 months over 13 months improved vitamin A status and school attendance but not anthropometric status of these children.

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PubMed1991

Use of focus groups to study absenteeism due to illness.

Reasons for sick leaves are often complex and influenced by nonmedical factors. We have used focus groups, a qualitative research method, to study the relationship between working conditions and absenteeism due to illness in both an industrial company and an insurance company. We organized 10 focus groups within each company, with participants randomly selected from departments having similar work tasks within each company. According to the groups, the most important working conditions that influenced absenteeism were (a) feeling of well-being at work (mainly defined as security in social relations), (b) the organization of the work, and (c) the department leader. Factors considered to be less important included: number of employees, male/female ratios, group norms for absenteeism, age distribution, work-related illness, substance abuse, and work loads. There was substantial agreement between the groups, indicating that our findings may be relevant to other companies.

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PubMed1991

Absenteeism control programs. Results of a national survey of certified occupational health nurses.

An absenteeism control program can reduce employee absenteeism, thereby reducing company expenses, improving productivity, and bringing workers back to work sooner. A survey of Cohn's suggests that many companies in the United States lack absenteeism control programs, and those firms that have such programs are unlikely to have all the elements of a good program in place. Placing the occupational health nurse in charge of a comprehensive program will provide needed leadership, responsibility, expertise, and control.

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PubMed1990

A study of a work site health promotion program and absenteeism.

This paper reports on a study of the absenteeism experience of two groups of Johnson & Johnson employees over a 3-year period. Employees at four company sites (n = 1406) where LIVE FOR LIFE, a comprehensive health promotion program, had been introduced, were compared with employees at five company sites (n = 487) without the health promotion program. Analyses of covariance were employed to control for differences between the two study groups with respect to age, gender, job classification (wage or salaried), as well as baseline levels of absenteeism. Adjusted mean levels of absenteeism among wage earners in the LIVE FOR LIFE groups were found to decline over the study period, and were significantly lower (P less than .01) than mean levels for the non-LIVE FOR LIFE wage employees in the final year of the study. No significant differences were found for salaried personnel.

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PubMed1989

Change in Sunday licensing laws and the effect on Monday absenteeism. A short report on a poultry processing plant.

Licensing laws were changed in Northern Ireland on 1st October 1987 to allow drinking of alcohol in public houses on Sundays. The effect on absenteeism was studied in the immediate period after this change using Monday absenteeism as a marker for change. The study was conducted in a small poultry processing plant employing approximately four hundred and forty people. Mean differences between Monday absenteeism for the month of October 1986 and 1985 prior to the change in laws and October 1987 were shown to be not significant.

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PubMed1988

[Causes and rates of absenteeism in selected branches of industry during the years 1970-1987].

Since 1970 the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Lódź has systematically carried out the analysis of sickness absenteeism of workers taken care of by the industrial health service. Monthly reports concerning temporal working disability prepared for plants by the institutions of industrial health service constitute the source material for the analysis. The analysis of the rate and structure of sickness absenteeism for the whole industry and its particular branches made it possible to point to industries which are most hazardous to health. The values of lost time rates due to diseases proves that only some branches of industry do exceed the mean lost time rate in industry. These are as follows: ferrous metallurgy (5.21), metals producing industry (4.88), textile industry (4.83), chemical industry (4.63) and rubber processing industry (4.73). Moreover, the rate analysis rendered it possible to observe changes in sickness absenteeism in these industries over years. There are five main causes for diagnosing working disability in industry: 1) respiratory system diseases (1.12), 2) nervous system and sense organs diseases (0.70), 3) circulatory system diseases (0.61), 4) osteomuscular system diseases (0.58) and 5) digestive system diseases (0.48).

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PubMed1988

Employee no-shows: managing library absenteeism.

Employee absenteeism is a problem faced by all library administrators. This paper describes the development, implementation, and results of a program to discourage absenteeism at the Moody Medical Library of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The important role of library administrators and supervisors in controlling absenteeism is emphasized.

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PubMed1987

Work performance, absenteeism and antihypertensive medications.

Relationships between antihypertensive medications and selected aspects of work performance and absenteeism were explored in a multicentre, randomized, double-blind, clinical trial with 626 male hypertensive patients assigned to regimens of captopril, methyldopa or propranolol, either alone or supplemented as needed by a diuretic for blood pressure control. Patients previously on antihypertensive therapy did not differ from new patients in work absenteeism, both before and throughout the clinical trial. After a 24-week treatment period patients on captopril alone improved significantly over baseline in work-performance measures of mental acuity and job satisfaction-morale, while significant worsening in the methyldopa group and no change in the propranolol group occurred among patients given these drugs alone. When 24-week changes between groups not on diuretic were compared, significant differences in the measures appeared in favour of captopril. However, patients also taking a diuretic did not differ from baseline either within or between the three groups. Withdrawal from the trial because of lethargy and fatigue was significantly greater among patients on methyldopa and propranolol than among those receiving captopril. Absenteeism did not differ between the drug groups. The study shows that there are measurable differences in the impact of the antihypertensive drugs on aspects of work performance, and it underlines the importance of considering this factor in assigning patients to therapy.

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PubMed1985

Effect of gaming on absenteeism rate.

Gaming, a behavior modification technique, was used in an attempt to decrease absenteeism in a dietary department of a 426-bed medical center. A lottery reward system was used to reinforce the appropriate behavior (as identified by management) of perfect attendance. The intervention strategy did lower the absenteeism rate from 2.46% to 2.03%, not significant when tested by one-way analysis of variance at the 0.05 level. However, from an administrative standpoint, the decline in absenteeism was important because of the potential monetary savings.

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PubMed1985

[Analysis of the duration of absenteeism due to illness and accidents during the year. I. Evaluation of the accuracy of empirical tables].

The paper presents results of the comparison of empirical distributions of sickness and accidental absenteeism annually. The comparison was based on absenteeism data for all workers of 10 industrial plants representing different industries all over Poland in 1977. The analysis was performed for each sex separately, taking into account only those with absenteeism higher than zero. Distributions in particular age groups have been compared between industrial plants for each sex separately. The results promote adjustment of theoretical probability distributions for age groups, combining workers of all plants in all age groups excluding the youngest, i.e. up to 29 years.

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PubMed1979

A comparison of absentee rates of elementary schoolchildren with asthma and nonasthmatic schoolmates.

Daily school attendance has been suggested as a health status measure for children. The present study compares school absence in children known to have asthma (N = 95) with a random sample of nonasthmatic elementary schoolchildren (N = 711). The differences in average percentage of days absent over one year were analyzed by comparing both groups' conditioning on ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, and grade. Children with asthma have a significantly higher absentee rate (absent 8.4% of days) than do nonasthmatic children (absent 5.9% of days) (P less than 9001). This significant difference holds true regardless of ethnicity of sex and for most socioeconomic groups. A comparison by grade level shows a similar trend for children with asthma and nonasthmatic children: absentee rates decrease as children get older; however, except for one grade level, children with asthma have a greater percentage of school days absent. Mean absentee rates for children with asthma were different when compared according to their mother's perception of severity of asthma--mild (6.9%), moderate (7.9%), and severe (13.9%).

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PubMed1984

Absenteeism among hospital staff during an influenza epidemic: implications for immunoprophylaxis.

The 1980-81 epidemic of influenza A/Bangkok 79 was responsible for increased absenteeism (1.7 times the rate for the corresponding period of the subsequent nonepidemic year) among selected hospital staff in Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre. Retrospective study of employment records for 25 of the centre's largest departments showed excess sick-leave costs of about $24 500 during the 2-week period of peak absenteeism that included the epidemic. Although the centre was sampling prospectively for the virus the first positive results became available too late for chemoprophylactic measures to have been effective. The greater increase in absenteeism among nursing staff caring for patients with chronic respiratory disease and nurses working on general medical or pediatric acute infection/isolation wards suggested that these groups be targeted for influenza vaccination in hospitals.

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