Background: Doctors' sickness absence reduces the quality and continuity of patient care and is financially costly. Doctors have lower rates of sickness absence than other healthcare workers.
Aims: To compare self-reported with recorded sickness absence in doctors in a UK National Health Service hospital trust.
Methods: A retrospective questionnaire study. The main outcome measures were self-reported and trust-recorded sickness absence episodes of 4 days or more in two consecutive 6-month periods.
Results: The response rate was 82% (607/736). Self-reported sickness absence rates were 1.2% compared with a rate of 0.6% from trust-recorded data. There were 38 matched pairs of self-reported (mean duration: 18 days, standard deviation: 22 days) and trust-recorded (mean duration: 10 days, standard deviation: 17 days) sickness absence episodes of 4 days or more in the 12 months studied. A matched pairs t-test determined that the difference between the two means was significant (t = 2.57, P < 0.05).
Conclusions: Doctors' sickness absence was significantly under-recorded in this study population.
Keywords: Doctors; NHS; doctors’health; recorded; self-reported; sick leave.; sickness absence.
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