Introduction: In the last 25 years, health systems have had to respond to a large number of pandemic or pandemic-prone respiratory virus outbreaks (i.e., SARS 2002, H5N1 2003, H1N1 2009, MERS 2011, H7N9 2013, COVID-19 2019). These outbreaks have impacted the ability of the health workforce to come to work and the surge capacity of the health system. It is important to measure the pattern of absence in these outbreaks to plan for future pandemics. Methods: A scoping review was conducted according to the Arksey and O’Malley framework and PRISMA-ScR guidelines. The search was limited to publications from 1998 to July 19, 2022. The search strategy included eight databases. Study selection using pre-defined criteria and structured data extraction was conducted by two independent reviewers with final consensus. Results: Of the 2099 studies identified, 37 were included. There were 26 studies on COVID-19, 10 studies on H1N1 (2009), and 1 study on MERS (2011). The majority were cohort studies (n=24), and self-reported surveys of health care workers (HCWs) (n=12). The majority of the reported absenteeism rates were not standardized, and included the total number of absence days (n=12), number of new absence episodes (n=9), proportion of HCW absent per day (n=6), and excess pandemic absences (n=17), etc. The proportion of HCWs absent per day ranged from 9.1% to 25.1% during COVID-19 (from 3 studies) and 1.45% to 43% during H1N1 (from 3 studies). After standardization, the median was 0.7 new absence episodes per 100 HCW per week (range 0.2 to 29.1) (from 4 studies), and 15.3 days per 100 HCW per week (range 4.7 to 126) (from 10 studies). Conclusion: Health workforce absenteeism is a significant issue that must be considered in pandemic planning and response. Future research should be reported in a standardized fashion to allow meaningful comparisons between health facilities.
Hung et al. (Sun,) studied this question.