Exploring nurses’ presenteeism from the effort-reward imbalance perspective in the Chinese context: a latent profile analysis

Due to the unique challenges of their work environment and job demands, nurses often work even when ill. Nurses’ presenteeism, defined as working while ill impairs performance or engagement, poses a significant threat to both the quality of care and patient safety. Previous studies have primarily measured nurses’ presenteeism using scale scores or thresholds, an approach that focuses solely on the study variable while neglecting inter-individual differences. Recognising individual differences is the key to conducting personalised analyses and subsequently developing targeted intervention strategies. This study aimed to employ latent profile analysis to identify distinct subgroups and characteristics of nurses’ presenteeism within the Chinese cultural context, and incorporate the effort-reward imbalance model to explore factors associated with presenteeism. A cross-sectional online study involving 2,871 eligible nurses conducted through the questionnaire platform named “Wen Juan Xing”. The general information questionnaire, the McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale, the Stanford Presenteeism Scale and the Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire were used as the measurement instruments. SPSS (version 25.0) was used for the descriptive statistics and multicollinearity analysis. Mplus (version 8.0) was used to conduct the common method bias test, latent profile analysis and covariate analysis. Nurses’ presenteeism was classified into three profiles, namely, the “Low presenteeism-Dual Stability Group” (29.5%), the “Medium Presenteeism-Restricted Concentration Group” (20.5%), and the “High Presenteeism-Impaired Task Execution Group” (50.0%). These subgroups demonstrated divergent patterns across the effort-reward imbalance perspective (effort, reward, and overcommitment), individual characteristics (age and gender), and occupational information (years of working experience and job satisfaction). The three subgroups of nurses’ presenteeism in this study exhibited significant heterogeneity. Different subgroups exhibited distinct characteristics. The significant heterogeneity in the three potential profiles can help nursing managers develop individualised and targeted interventions. This study provides a new direction for reducing nurse presenteeism from an effort-reward imbalance perspective. Not applicable.