TY - JOUR
T1 - Changing patterns of sickness absence among healthcare workers in England during the COVID-19 pandemic
AU - Edge, Rhiannon
AU - Van Der Plaat, DIana A.
AU - Parsons, Vaughan
AU - Coggon, David
AU - Van Tongeren, Martie
AU - Muiry, Rupert
AU - Madan, Ira
AU - Cullinan, Paul
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].
PY - 2022/3/1
Y1 - 2022/3/1
N2 - Background: Patterns of sickness absence shed useful light on disease occurrence and illness-related behaviours in working populations. Methods: We analysed prospectively collected, pseudonymized data on 959 356 employees who were continuously employed by National Health Service trusts in England from 1 January 2019 to 31 July 2020, comparing the frequency of new sickness absence in 2020 with that at corresponding times in 2019. Results: After exclusion of episodes directly related to COVID-19, the overall incidence of sickness absence during the initial 10 weeks of the pandemic (March-May 2020) was more than 20% lower than in corresponding weeks of 2019. Trends for specific categories of illness varied substantially, with a fall by 24% for cancer, but an increase for mental illness. A doubling of new absences for pregnancy-related disorders during May-July of 2020 was limited to women with earlier COVID-19 sickness absence. Conclusions: Various factors will have contributed to the large and divergent changes that were observed. The findings reinforce concerns regarding delays in diagnosis and treatment of cancers and support a need to plan for a large backlog of treatment for many other diseases. Further research should explore the rise in absence for pregnancy-related disorders among women with earlier COVID-19 sickness absence.
AB - Background: Patterns of sickness absence shed useful light on disease occurrence and illness-related behaviours in working populations. Methods: We analysed prospectively collected, pseudonymized data on 959 356 employees who were continuously employed by National Health Service trusts in England from 1 January 2019 to 31 July 2020, comparing the frequency of new sickness absence in 2020 with that at corresponding times in 2019. Results: After exclusion of episodes directly related to COVID-19, the overall incidence of sickness absence during the initial 10 weeks of the pandemic (March-May 2020) was more than 20% lower than in corresponding weeks of 2019. Trends for specific categories of illness varied substantially, with a fall by 24% for cancer, but an increase for mental illness. A doubling of new absences for pregnancy-related disorders during May-July of 2020 was limited to women with earlier COVID-19 sickness absence. Conclusions: Various factors will have contributed to the large and divergent changes that were observed. The findings reinforce concerns regarding delays in diagnosis and treatment of cancers and support a need to plan for a large backlog of treatment for many other diseases. Further research should explore the rise in absence for pregnancy-related disorders among women with earlier COVID-19 sickness absence.
KW - COVID-19
KW - healthcare workers
KW - sickness absence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118939977&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/pubmed/fdab341
DO - 10.1093/pubmed/fdab341
M3 - Article
C2 - 34514506
AN - SCOPUS:85118939977
SN - 1741-3842
VL - 44
SP - E42-E50
JO - Journal of Public Health (United Kingdom)
JF - Journal of Public Health (United Kingdom)
IS - 1
ER -
