Sickness absenteeism among outsourced hygiene and cleaning workers at a university hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, 2015-2017

BACKGROUND: Absenteeism refers to frequent absences from work without producing a medical certificate or having been granted sick leave. OBJECTIVE: To establish the rate of short-term sickness absenteeism (1 to 15 days) among outsourced hygiene and cleaning workers at a university hospital. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of all medical and dental certificates collected by the contractor along two years (2015 through 2017). Descriptive statistics analysis was performed according to the nature of variables (absolute and relative frequencies and measures of central tendency and variability for categorical and numerical variables respectively) followed by Pearson’s χ(2) test. RESULTS: The study population consisted of 370 workers, most of whom were female (n=333, 91.4%), aged 30 to 50 and with low educational level. The monthly absenteeism rate was 5.2%, on average, and the sickness absenteeism rate 37.9%. The most prevalent reasons for sick leave were musculoskeletal disorders (n=271, 20.7%) and diseases of the digestive system (n=141, 10.8%). The total number of missed work days along the analyzed period was 8,788. CONCLUSION: The epidemiological profile of sick leave spells included both occupational diseases (musculoskeletal disorders) and conditions without direct or indirect relationship to work. The proportion of sickness absence was low relative to the overall absenteeism rate.