Productivity Loss and Musculoskeletal Symptoms in Brazilian Presenteeism: A Cross-sectional Study

The work has been brought to nursing professionals, denoting an increase in illness and consequent decrease in productivity.

This study aims to verify the relationship between productivity and the presence of musculoskeletal symptoms in presenteeism.

This is a cross-sectional and analytical study conducted with 305 Nursing workers from an emergency hospital in the Brazilian Midwest region. For data collection, four self-applied instruments were used, namely: the Sociodemographic Work and Health Conditions Questionnaire (QSCTS), the Stanford Presenteeism Scale (SPS-6), the Work Limitations Questionnaire (WLQ), and the Brazilian version of the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ), Nordic Musculoskeletal Symptom Questionnaire (QNSO). The “presenteeism” and “presenteeism degree” dependent variables were related to the independent variables using the logistic regression model.

Presenteeism was identified in 134 (43.8%) workers. Overall productivity loss was 8.8%. Regarding the relationship between presenteeism and the occurrence of musculoskeletal symptoms, workers with problems in the upper back, knees, and neck in the last year were 6.5, 2.7, and 2.2 more likely to be presenteeism, respectively.

The study confirmed the relationship between greater productivity losses and the incidence of musculoskeletal symptoms with presenteeism events in the Nursing team.