Attitudes about sickness presenteeism in medical training: is there a hidden curriculum?

Sickness presenteeism among healthcare professionals can compromise patient safety. To better understand what motivates this phenomenon, especially among trainees, the authors investigated attitudes of medical students, resident physicians, and faculty physicians about working when sick with what mi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antimicrobial resistance & infection control 2019-09, Vol.8 (1), p.149-149, Article 149
Main Authors: Kaldjian, Lauris C, Shinkunas, Laura A, Reisinger, Heather Schacht, Polacco, Marc A, Perencevich, Eli N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Curricula
Curriculum
Disease transmission
Education
Employee motivation
Ethics
Family medicine
Hidden curriculum
Hospitals
Infection control
Influenza
Internal medicine
Medical education
Medical ethics
Medical personnel
Medical personnel training
Medical schools
Medical students
Medicine
Patient care
Patient safety
Pediatrics
Presenteeism (Labor)
Sickness presenteeism
Students
Training
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Sickness presenteeism among healthcare professionals can compromise patient safety. To better understand what motivates this phenomenon, especially among trainees, the authors investigated attitudes of medical students, resident physicians, and faculty physicians about working when sick with what might be an infectious condition. In 2012-2013, the authors employed a mixed methods, two-stage, cross-sectional survey at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics of medical students (third-year students in the first survey and fourth-year students in the second survey), resident physicians in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Family Medicine (first-year residents in the first survey and second-year residents in the second survey), and faculty physicians in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Family Medicine. The first survey included one open-ended question querying attitudes about sickness presenteeism, answers to which underwent content analysis that identified 17 codes used to develop 23 additional closed-ended questions for a second survey. 127 participants completed the second survey (44% response rate). Sixty percent of these participants felt obligated to work when sick; and 33% felt obligated to work with influenza-like symptoms (fever, myalgias, cough), with residents and students being more likely to do so than faculty (67% vs. 35% vs. 14%,  = 0.001). Most participants (83%) were motivated to work when sick to avoid creating more work for colleagues, and residents and students were more likely than faculty physicians to want to avoid negative repercussions (84% vs 71% vs. 25%,  
ISSN:2047-2994
2047-2994
DOI:10.1186/s13756-019-0602-7