Interventions to reduce sickness absence within a healthcare population: a systematic review

The rate of sick leave in healthcare employees has been increasing with the ambulance service, nurses and support workers demonstrating the highest levels of absence across the NHS. Therefore, it is important to assess the effectiveness of interventions to reduce sickness absence among healthcare employees. The aim of this systematic review was to to identify and synthesise evidence on interventions that reduce sickness absence within healthcare employees and provide information on the effectiveness of these interventions. Database searches were conducted (MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO,Web of Science and EMBASE) to access randomised control trials that aimed to reduce sickness absence. The inclusion criteria were English language articles with participants who were employed in the healthcare sector. The primary outcome was a change in sickness absence categorised as either the duration of sickness (i.e. the number of days off sick) or the number of absences over a certain time period. Data were extracted using a modified Cochrane data extraction form and the risk of bias for each study was calculated. A total of seven studies were found to meet the inclusion criteria, which included four exercise interventions, two influenza vaccination interventions and one process consultation intervention