title: Relationship between inpatient satisfaction and nurse absenteeism: an exploratory study using WHO-PATH performance indicators in France.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Indicators describing results of care are widely explored in term of patient satisfaction (PS). Among factors explaining PS, human resources indicators have been studied in terms of burnout or job satisfaction among healthcare professionals. No research work has set out to explore the effect of absenteeism on PS scores. The objective of this study was to explore interaction between rate of absenteeism among nurses and PS results.
  
  
  METHODS
  France has taken part in a project named PATH (Performance Assessment Tool for Hospitals) of the World Health Organization, aiming to develop a tool for the assessment of hospital performance. In the first semester 2008, 25 volunteering short-stay hospitals (teaching, general and private) provide complete data on nurse short-absenteeism (periods of up to 7 consecutive days of sick leave) and on PS (a cross-sectional postal survey using a standardized validated French-language scale EQS-H exploring "quality of medical information" (MI) and "relationships with staff and daily routine" (RS)). A multi-level model was used to take into account of the hierarchical nature of the data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Two thousand and sixty-five patients responded to the satisfaction questionnaire (participation rate: 40.9%). The mean age of respondents was 58 yrs (± 19), 41% were men. The mean duration of hospitalisation was 7.5 days (± 11.1). The mean absenteeism rate for nurses was 0.24% (± 0.14).All the PS scores were significantly and negatively correlated with rate of short-absenteeism among nurses (MI score: ρ = -0.55, p < 0.01), RS score ρ = -0.47, p = 0.02). The mixed model found a significant relationship between rate of absenteeism among nurses and PS scores (MI: p = 0.027; RS: p = 0.017).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results obtained in this study show that short-term absenteeism among nurses seems to be significantly and negatively correlated with PS. Our findings are an invitation to deepen our understanding of the impact of human resources on PS and to develop more specific projects.
authors.affiliation: Public Health Department--PIMESP, University Hospital of Nantes, Hospital Saint-Jacques 85, rue Saint-Jacques, 44093 Nantes cedex, France. leila.moret@chu-nantes.fr
authors.forename: Leila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Moret
authors.forename: Emmanuelle
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Anthoine
authors.forename: Cécile
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Paillé
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tricaud-Vialle
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gerbaud
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Giraud-Roufast
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Michel
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lombrail
mesh_terms: D000041:Absenteeism; D000368:Aged; D004650:Employee Performance Appraisal; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009726:Nurses / Q000458:organization & administration; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D018582:Sick Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires