A study of health-care workers in a children's hospital has found that 83 percent had come to work while sick at least once in the past year, even though almost all said they believed that working while ill can endanger patients.
The study, "Reasons Why Physicians and Advanced Practice Clinicians Work While Sick: A Mixed-Methods Analysis," appeared online July 6 ahead of publication by JAMA Pediatrics. Researchers surveyed 536 doctors and advanced practice clinicians (registered nurse practitioners, physician assistants, clinical nurse specialists, certified registered nurse anesthetists and certified nurse midwives) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The hospital's in a large, urban area, has 521 beds and admits about 28,000 patients per year.
Participants voluntarily filled out an online questionnaire and were offered no incentives to participate. It asked how often health-care workers came to work sick in 2013 and also about what ailments they might continue working through.
Almost 80 percent of the 280 doctors said they would work with a cough or runny nose, and 60 percent with congestion and a sore throat. More than 21 percent said they would come to work with a fever, and almost 8 percent said they would work even if they were sick to their stomachs.
The numbers were significantly lower for 256 nurses, midwives and physician assistants.
Even so, 70 percent said they would work while coughing, and half while afflicted with a runny nose, cough, congestion or sore throat.
The most common reasons were not wanting to let patients and colleagues down, concern about whether there would be enough staff to pick up the work, fear of ostracism by colleagues and concern about continuity of care.
Ambiguity about what constitutes "too sick to work" appeared in 57 percent of responses.
"We focus on hand hygiene and other infection control measures," said Dr. Julia S. Sammons of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Not coming to work when you're sick is part of this."
Celia Storey added some information to this report.
ActiveStyle on 07/20/2015