| Abstrakt: |
Hospital staff who come to work sick can transmit infections to patients. Such events are particularly important among immunocompromised patients who are at increased risk for morbidity and mortality from many of these pathogens. Despite dedicated education to counter presentism at our large cancer center, hospital staff still come to work sick. Therefore, we set out to understand perceptions, knowledge of institutional policies and reasons for working while sick. Clinical and non-clinical staff at our cancer center complete an annual online infection prevention training module. We attached an optional anonymous survey with eight questions, five of which targeted staff experiences and knowledge around presentism at module completion. Our questionnaire was modified from a published survey (Szymczak JAMA Pediatrics 2015), and addressed staff awareness, and experience with local institutional sick policies. A total of 2751 staff completed the required training module in 2016 and 2017, of whom 33% (899/2751) completed the optional anonymous survey. Nearly all survey respondents understood that coming to work sick was "dangerous for patients" (890/898 [99%]), however, 29% (258/899) indicated that they still came to work sick. The most common reasons for working sick were that they "didn't want to let their colleagues down" (50% of respondents), they "only had allergies" (38%), and that "leadership was not supportive" (21%). Only 10% (91/891) of respondents said that they "never" saw colleagues come to work sick. Comprehensive education at our center assured that the vast majority of staff understand the importance of sick policies. However, despite being among high-risk patients at a cancer center, staff still come to work sick and perceive that presentism remained high among their colleagues. Our data suggest that to prevent presentism, efforts targeting staffing support systems, professional behavior and enhanced sick policies may be more impactful than those focusing solely on patient safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
Full Text from ScienceDirect