Abstract:
Introduction: Throughout the world sickness absenteeism, one indicator of
health status is continues to be serious public health problems causing lost labor
time and obstacle to productivity. This problem is continued to be of great
concern where underprivileged occupational health services (less than 5%) exist
in developing countries including Ethiopia.
Objective: To determine prevalence of sickness absenteeism and associated
factors among horticulture employees in Lume District, Southeast Ethiopia.
Methods: Institution based cross sectional study including 600 employees from
all horticulture organizations in the district from March to April, 2014. Stratified
sampling by simple random sampling among the three main departments was
used to select study participants. Data were collected using pre-tested and
interviewer administered structured questionnaire by trained data collectors and
analyzed using SPSS version 20. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions
were used. Significance level was obtained withAOR at 95% CI and p<0.05.
Results: From the total 590 respondents,424(71.9%) were female and 418
(70.8%) werein agecategory of 19 to 29 years.The three month prevalence of
sickness absenteeism among horticulture employees was 58.8%with 6.6 average
working day lostper employee resulting in loss of 74,203 birr in the last three
months. Being secondary education [AOR=0.49, 95% CI :(0.30, 0.79)] & not
getting attendance-based incentive [AOR=0.49, 95% CI (0.32, 0.75)] were
protective while lack of periodic medical examination [AOR=3.58, 95% CI (2.10,
6.09)], job dissatisfaction [AOR=1.76, 95% CI (1.16, 2.65)], being stressed with
workplace [AOR=2.02, 95% CI (1.38, 2.94)] and poor in general health status
[AOR=3.17, 95% CI (2.07, 4.87)] were factors positively associated with sickness
absenteeism.
Conclusion:prevalence of sickness absenteeism among horticulture employees
was high when compared with other study in developing country. Being
secondary education, getting attendance-based incentive, lack of periodic
medical examination, job dissatisfaction and poor in general health status were
significantly associated with sickness absenteeism. Therefore, Interventions
should focus on promoting higher education, conducive work environment and
improving health of employees and periodic health surveillance.
