Association between workload and absenteeism in nursing technicians

Abstract

Objective: to identify absenteeism of nursing technicians in an Intensive Care Unit and to verify the association between absenteeism and workload. Method: cross-sectional retrospective study of documentary source and quantitative approach. It was performed in an adult intensive care unit with 4,920 measurements from the Nursing Activities Score in 2017, in order to extract the nursing workload, and control absenteeism, considering the absences recorded in the management register of the department. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was performed, dividing the intensive care unit into two groups (ICU I and ICU II), according to team shifts. Results: in the period analyzed, 461 absences were observed, with a higher proportion in ICU II (5.35%, p-value=0.00). This group also had the highest Nursing Activities Score (99.76) average. However, workload and absenteeism showed no statistically significant correlation in the analyzed groups (ICU I, r=0.02 and ICU II, r=0.06). Conclusion: there was no statistically significant association between absenteeism and workload of nursing technicians in the Intensive Care Unit. However, the team with the highest workload was the most absent.