Decreasing prevalence in sickness presenteeism before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from repeated Korean national surveys.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to investigate the association between the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and sickness presenteeism by directly comparing data collected before, during, and after the pandemic.

METHODS

We analyzed data from the fifth (conducted before the pandemic: July 2017 to November 2017), sixth (conducted during the pandemic: October 2020 to April 2021), and seventh (conducted after the pandemic: July 2023 to November 2023) Korean Working Conditions Surveys, comprising 114 140 workers. The primary outcome was self-reported sickness presenteeism, defined as attending work despite illness over the past 12 months. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the association between the COVID-19 period and sickness presenteeism after adjusting for demographic characteristics.

RESULTS

The prevalence of sickness presenteeism significantly decreased from 20.9% (before the pandemic) to 17.2% (during the pandemic), and it further decreased to 6.9% (after the pandemic). After adjusting for demographic and workplace characteristics, the odds of sickness presenteeism were significantly lower during the pandemic (odds ratio [OR] 0.84; 95% CI, 0.80-0.87) than before. Furthermore, the odds further decreased after the pandemic (OR 0.35; 95% CI, 0.33-0.37) relative to during the pandemic.

CONCLUSIONS

Sickness presenteeism decreased across the COVID-19 pandemic periods in South Korea. This decrease was observed in relation to the implementation of government-mandated sick leave policies for infectious disease control, suggesting an association between policy enforcement and decreasing sickness presenteeism.