Introduction: Sickness presence is used to denote an employee who feels unwell but still attends work, thus avoiding absence. The intention of this paper is to compare sickness presence in a group of the following professions: teachers, nurses and private sector office workers.
Material and methods: For the purpose of this study, a survey based on the original PAPI form (Paper-and-Pen Personal Interview) was carried out. Non-probability sampling, the snowball method (N = 507: teachers n = 174, nurses n = 165 and private sector office workers n = 168), covering the whole of Poland, was adopted. Non-parametric hypotheses were verified using the chi-squared test with a statistical significance α = 0.05.
Results: Compared to nurses and private sector office workers, teachers more frequently attended work when sick (p < 0.05). Out of the reported ailments that respondents worked with, teachers more often indicated rhinitis (p < 0.05), sore throat and cough (p < 0.05) and increased temperature (p < 0.05). This may be associated with a threat to the health of individuals in their charge. Teachers commonly complained about joint and bone pain (p < 0.05) and gastrointestinal disorders (p < 0.05). Contrary to nurses and private sector office workers, teachers did not point to 'lack of a replacement' as the reason for their presence at work when sick (p < 0.05). Exclusively, teachers added financial issues and difficulties in access to healthcare if they are working fewer hours to the list of reasons for attending work when sick.
Conclusions: Results suggest that there is a need for further studies on the presence of sick employees in the workplace, especially for teachers. The sickness presence of teachers and nurses may be a threat from a public health perspective. The workplace itself is a significant place to prevent many diseases.
Keywords: absenteeism; disease; presenteeism; public health; sickness presence; workplace.