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The prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried?

BACKGROUND: Absence from school can lead to lower educational achievement and poor health. Little is known about school absence in primary education. This study’s first aim was to examine the prevalence of school absence in primary schools and differing types of absence, including sickness absence....

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Autores principales: Pijl, Esther Karen, Vanneste, Yvonne Theodora Maria, de Rijk, Angelique Eveline, Feron, Frans Joseph Maria, Mathijssen, Jolanda
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7816510/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33472603
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10193-1
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author Pijl, Esther Karen
Vanneste, Yvonne Theodora Maria
de Rijk, Angelique Eveline
Feron, Frans Joseph Maria
Mathijssen, Jolanda
author_facet Pijl, Esther Karen
Vanneste, Yvonne Theodora Maria
de Rijk, Angelique Eveline
Feron, Frans Joseph Maria
Mathijssen, Jolanda
author_sort Pijl, Esther Karen
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Absence from school can lead to lower educational achievement and poor health. Little is known about school absence in primary education. This study’s first aim was to examine the prevalence of school absence in primary schools and differing types of absence, including sickness absence. The second aim was to determine which pupil characteristics and types of absence were associated with extensive sickness absence. METHODS: The school absence registries for the school year 2015–2016 were analysed retrospectively in eight mainstream primary schools with 2216 pupils, and six schools for special primary education with 1000 pupils in the West-Brabant region of the Netherlands. Descriptive analyses, χ(2)-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests and logistic regression analyses were performed. RESULTS: The one-year prevalence of school absence was 85% in mainstream primary schools and 79% in special schools. Sickness absence was the most prevalent type of absence, occurring in 75 and 71% of pupils, respectively The prevalence of extensive sickness absence was 13 and 23%, respectively. In mainstream schools, extensive sickness absence was associated with a young age, low parental educational level, more doctor’s visits and unauthorised absence, and in special schools with more doctor’s visits, other authorised absence, tardiness and unauthorised absence. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of extensive sickness absence was high, and as this was associated with other types of absence, these pupils missed even more days of school. Public health research, policy and practice should address sickness absence among primary school pupils, to prevent adverse effects on children’s development.
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spelling pubmed-78165102021-01-22 The prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried? Pijl, Esther Karen Vanneste, Yvonne Theodora Maria de Rijk, Angelique Eveline Feron, Frans Joseph Maria Mathijssen, Jolanda BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Absence from school can lead to lower educational achievement and poor health. Little is known about school absence in primary education. This study’s first aim was to examine the prevalence of school absence in primary schools and differing types of absence, including sickness absence. The second aim was to determine which pupil characteristics and types of absence were associated with extensive sickness absence. METHODS: The school absence registries for the school year 2015–2016 were analysed retrospectively in eight mainstream primary schools with 2216 pupils, and six schools for special primary education with 1000 pupils in the West-Brabant region of the Netherlands. Descriptive analyses, χ(2)-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests and logistic regression analyses were performed. RESULTS: The one-year prevalence of school absence was 85% in mainstream primary schools and 79% in special schools. Sickness absence was the most prevalent type of absence, occurring in 75 and 71% of pupils, respectively The prevalence of extensive sickness absence was 13 and 23%, respectively. In mainstream schools, extensive sickness absence was associated with a young age, low parental educational level, more doctor’s visits and unauthorised absence, and in special schools with more doctor’s visits, other authorised absence, tardiness and unauthorised absence. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of extensive sickness absence was high, and as this was associated with other types of absence, these pupils missed even more days of school. Public health research, policy and practice should address sickness absence among primary school pupils, to prevent adverse effects on children’s development. BioMed Central 2021-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7816510/ /pubmed/33472603 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10193-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pijl, Esther Karen
Vanneste, Yvonne Theodora Maria
de Rijk, Angelique Eveline
Feron, Frans Joseph Maria
Mathijssen, Jolanda
The prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried?
title The prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried?
title_full The prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried?
title_fullStr The prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried?
title_full_unstemmed The prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried?
title_short The prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried?
title_sort prevalence of sickness absence among primary school pupils – reason to be worried?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7816510/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33472603
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10193-1
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