Seasonal influenza vaccination and absenteeism in health-care workers in two subsequent influenza seasons (2016/17 and 2017/18) in an Italian pediatric hospital

ABSTRACT

Background: Seasonal influenza in Health-Care Workers (HCWs) is a topic of growing interest in public health for its organizational implications. The study aims at measuring absenteeism due to influenza in HCWs of an Italian pediatric hospital.

Research design and methods: A retrospective observational study on absenteeism for influenza and influenza-like illness was carried out on all hospital HCWs. Sickness absences up to 5 days and vaccination status of HCWs were recorded during the last two years (2016/2017, 2017/2018). Average sickness absenteeism rate in vaccinated and unvaccinated HCWs and total working days lost were estimated. Daily mean cost for HCW was calculated in order to define the non-vaccination costs.

Results: In this study, the authors analyzed the overlapping between the trend of weekly sickness absenteeism and the morbidity rate associated with influenza epidemics in adults living in the Lazio region, Italy. An excess of 0.38 (p = 0.03) and 0.46 (p = 0.01) of average days lost was recorded in unvaccinated HCWs in the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 epidemic seasons. The total amount of days lost in unvaccinated HCWs is 1.485,4 with a total cost of € 252.060,54.

Conclusions: Seasonal influenza vaccination confirms its key role in preventing outbreaks of influenza and promoting HCWs health.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational health
• influenza
• influenza-like illness
• health-care workers
• sickness absenteeism
• seasonal influenza vaccination
• workplace health promotion

Article highlights

• Absenteeism in epidemic periods of 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 years are higher than in non-epidemic ones.

• Absenteeism is higher in unvaccinated HCWs than in vaccinated ones.

• The total days lost in unvaccinated people are about 740 per year.

• The total costs amount to € 125,000.00 per year.

• Annual plans of influenza vaccination have to be implemented in the hospitals following the guidelines and recommendations in order to change the attitudes and increase the coverage rate in HCWs.

Author contributions

S. Zaffina conceived and designed the study; reviewed and submitted the paper. F. Gilardi: conceived and designed the study; conducted the analysis and interpretation of the data; drafted the paper. C. Rizzo: conceived and designed the study; drafted and reviewed the paper. S. Sannino: collected data, built the database, conducted the analysis and interpretation of the data; drafted the paper. R. Brugaletta: reviewed the paper. A. Santoro: conceived and designed the study; reviewed the paper. G. Castelli Gattinara: conceived and designed the study. M. Ciofi Degli Atti: conceived and designed the study. M. Raponi: reviewed the paper. M.R. Vinci: conceived and designed the study; reviewed the paper.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [SZ], upon reasonable request.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

The paper was not funded.