Analysis of sickness presenteeism prevalence among nurses working in selected health facilities in Swaziland.

Abstract

Sickness presenteeism occurs when employees go to work when they would be justified in taking time off for complaints and ill health that can either be physical or mental or both (Johns, 2010; Demerouti, Le Blanc, Bakker, Schaufeli and Hox, 2009; Aronsson, Gustafsson, and Dallner, 2000; Jourdain and Vézina, 2013). Sickness presenteeism has drastic effects to the organization or employer, the health of the employee, the safety of the health care consumers (clients and patients) and families of the employees (Roelen, Jensen, Stapelfeldt Groothoff, Nielsen and Bültmann, 2014;Sendén, Løvseth, Schenck-Gustafsson and Fridner, 2013). Sickness presenteeism has been discovered to be prevalent among human service organizations such as nursing (Johansen, Aronsson, and Marklund, 2014; Leineweber, Westerlund, Hagberg, Svedberg and Alexanderson, 2012; Aronsson et. al., 2000). High job demands, inability to adjust amount and type of work to do in a given period of time, lack of social support and experiencing health problems are cited as some of the predisposing factors of sickness presenteeism (Jourdain and Vézina, 2013; Linnerud, 2013; Demerouti et. al., 2009 and Theorell, 1996). Amongst studies conducted, sickness presenteeism has been assessed based on varying degrees of nurse staffing levels and nursing work schedules of various shifts (Linnerud, 2013 and Zirwatul, Ibrahim, and Ohtsuka, 2012).