The risk of low back pain recurrence and the associated sick leaves should therefore decrease.
The distribution of ILI-associated sick leave of HCWs varied by professional category (Table 4).
HCWs received 884 ILI-associated sick leaves during August October 2009, compared with 96 during the same period in 2008 (p<0.00001).
In addition, monthly rates of ILI-associated sick leave days per 100 HCWs were compared for the 2 sick leave policies by using χ.
Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 substantially affected HCW absenteeism with significantly higher ILI-associated sick leave during August October 2009 than during the same period in 2008.
In a previous study on new episodes, indirect costs constituted 84% of the total costs incurred as a result of shoulder-associated sick leave [ 10].
We calculated the total number of sick leaves issued, their average duration, and total days of ILI-associated sick leave for HCWs working under the 7-day and 2-day + reassessment policies during the pandemic period.
We assessed ILI in and ILI-associated sick leave for HCWs who are overseen by the hospital's occupational health service, i.e., physicians; nurses and nurse assistants; and pharmacy, nutrition, laboratory, and administration workers.
At the remaining 6 institutes (2-day + reassessment policy), a total of 415 staff (physicians, nurses and nurse assistants) received ILI-associated sick leaves, resulting in a total cost of R$454,968.92 (≈US $252,761) (Table 5).
To estimate the costs of absenteeism, the mean annual gross salary per capita of Austrian employees was divided by 220 working days, and this number was then multiplied by the average number of osteoporotic-fracture associated sick-days.
