Abstract

Absenteeism refers to failure to attend the workplace when the person was expected to be present. On the other hand, job satisfaction is a state of pleasant happiness, resulting from a recognized performance. In health institutions it is essential that the staff express a positive feeling towards their work. Absenteeism can be an indicator of low quality of health services, impacting on patient care, but also on the worker. The objective is to determine the relationship between absenteeism and job satisfaction in nursing staff at a Second Level Hospital in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. It is a descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional, non-experimental study. The population are nursing professionals. A non-probabilistic convenience sample is used with a size of 194. The instrument used is the Chiang, et al. Job Satisfaction Scale. (2018). For the statistical analysis, the SPSS version 23 software was used. The ethical aspects of the research in human beings were respected in accordance with the General Health Law (Mexico). 54.1% of the personnel presented absenteeism in the institute on at least one occasion. The main causes were COVID-19 leave, general illness and unexcused absence. When measuring overall satisfaction, average levels of satisfaction were found at 65.5%. A statistically significant relationship was found between absenteeism and the dimensions of job satisfaction. The results of the study showed that the staff is moderately satisfied, and absenteeism is present in more than half of the sample, mostly women. Likewise, that job satisfaction is a factor of work absenteeism.

Keywords:  excused absence; unexcused absence; job satisfaction; medical staff