摘要：Sickness absence among hospital personnel with different work types was compared. Sickness absence records were collected for all personnel in the Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, a medical school in southern Thailand with a 750-bed teaching hospital, from October 1995 to September 1998, and analysed using descriptive statistics and negative binomial regression. Doctors and nurses recorded lower rates of short-term sickness absence (< 3 d) than other workers. Doctors also recorded the lowest rate of long-term absence (≥ 3 d), whereas other medical personnel and manual workers had higher rates of long-term sickness absence than other workers. These differences were only slightly influenced by sex, age and marital status. Rates of short-term sickness absence were higher in males, older and married personnel. A higher grade of employment was associated with lower sickness absence, both short- and long-term, and accounted for much of the actual differences among work types. Nevertheless, significant differences across work type remained after adjustment for socio-demographic and other work-related variables. The findings of this study would provide new baseline information regarding sickness absence patterns among hospital staff in this particular setting, but there is still a need to distinguish among the true reasons for reported sickness absence, particularly short-term absence, in order to set up an appropriate health promotion programme among the staff of this hospital.
