Costs of sickness absence among government personnel of the units under Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health

Abstract

Sickness absence refers to when an employee was absent from work due to sickness. It resulted in reduced efficiencies of work and could reflected well-beings of employees in organizations. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the sickness absence duration, costs of sickness absence, and the relationship between costs of sickness absence and personal factors. The secondary data of sickness absence records of 1,884 employees during 2014-2016, from the units under the Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health were included. Descriptive statistics was applied to analyze average sickness absence duration, while average costs were calculated by Human Capital Approach. The associations between sickness absence costs and personal factors were tested by multiple linear regression. The findings showed that the overall sickness absence per year from 2014 to 2016 stood at 604, 795, and 535 days, with an average of 10.53, 9.17, 9.55 days per person per year, respectively. The average costs of sickness absence per year from 2014 to 2016 were 2,880.95, 2,624.18, and 2,882.14 Baht per person per year, respectively. Furthermore, no significant difference was observed between sickness absence duration and costs of sickness absence, including no statistical associations of costs of sickness absence, with individual personal factors including gender, age, types of employees, and causes of absence. To summarize, there are no differences in absence duration, costs of sickness absence, and relationship between the costs of sickness absence and the personal variables. This research reflected overall well-beings of employees as a consequence; the organization could develop the information system for efficient monitoring and evaluation of employees’ health. This, in turn, led to formulation of policy and planning in health welfare, such as the annual health check-up responsive to sex and age.