Increases in absenteeism among health care workers in Hong Kong during influenza epidemics, 2004–2009

BMC Infectious Diseases

Table 1 Mean all-cause and ARI-related daily sickness absence rate among different staff types during different periods

All-cause sickness absence rate (%, SD)
Staff type	Pre-pandemic period^a		Pandemic period^b		All periods
Staff type	Non-epidemic	Epidemic^c	Containment^d	Mitigation^e
Medical	0.25 (0.22)	0.37 (0.32)	0.25 (0.22)	0.59 (0.33)	0.30 (0.27)
Nursing	1.46 (0.37)	1.51 (0.43)	1.65 (0.33)	1.96 (0.37)	1.52 (0.41)
Allied Health	0.71 (0.41)	0.80 (0.43)	1.16 (0.47)	1.34 (0.53)	0.79 (0.47)
Administrative	0.92 (1.24)	0.85 (1.17)	0.32 (0.69)	0.62 (0.94)	0.87 (1.20)
Supporting	1.12 (0.41)	1.21 (0.45)	1.63 (0.45)	1.98 (0.51)	1.22 (0.50)
Overall	1.12 (0.32)	1.20 (0.38)	1.45 (0.35)	1.77 (0.48)	1.20 (0.39)
ARI-related sickness absence rate (%, SD)
Staff type	Pre-pandemic period		Pandemic period		All periods
Staff type	Non-epidemic	Epidemic	Containment	Mitigation
Medical	0.006 (0.029)	0.009 (0.038)	0.052 (0.105)	0.087 (0.111)	0.015 (0.053)
Nursing	0.33 (0.15)	0.37 (0.16)	0.32 (0.10)	0.48 (0.20)	0.35 (0.16)
Allied Health	0.12 (0.16)	0.14 (0.16)	0.18 (0.20)	0.28 (0.24)	0.14 (0.17)
Administrative	0.12 (0.44)	0.10 (0.40)	0.22 (0.58)	0.24 (0.51)	0.13 (0.45)
Supporting	0.21 (0.14)	0.27 (0.17)	0.32 (0.17)	0.49 (0.25)	0.24 (0.18)
Overall	0.23 (0.11)	0.27 (0.13)	0.28 (0.11)	0.42 (0.18)	0.25 (0.13)

ARI, acute respiratory infections
^aPre-pandemic period: from January 1, 2004 through April 30, 2009
^bPandemic period: from May 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009
^cEpidemic periods: any two or more consecutive weeks with ≥4 % of the annual number of positive influenza isolation from the virological reference laboratory in the Hong Kong West Cluster [14]
^dContainment period: from May 1, 2009 to June 10, 2009, starting from the date that the WHO issued a global alert till the occurrence of the first untraceable local case of A(H1N1)pdm09 in Hong Kong
^eMitigation period: from June 11, 2009 to December 31, 2009, starting from the occurrence of the first untraceable local case of A(H1N1)pdm09 in Hong Kong through to the end of the study period [15]

ISSN: 1471-2334