Effect of COVID-19 Infection on Presenteeism: A Cohort Study Using Large Health Insurance-Based Data in Japan

Objective: Presenteeism occurs when employees attend work despite experiencing problems and ill-health that require sick leave. This study examined whether presenteeism worsened following COVID-19 infection.

Methods: We used the DeSC, a large health insurance claims database. Participants were 9241 individuals who responded to questionnaires at baseline (June 2020) and 6 months later, had been continuously insured for at least 6 months prior to baseline, and reported being employed. Propensity score matching was performed. Adjusted multiple logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals of worsening presenteeism from baseline according to COVID-19 infection compared with noninfection.

Results: Conditional logistic regression analysis showed that the adjusted OR for presenteeism in the COVID-19-infected group was 1.555 (95% confidence interval, 1.086-2.225).

Conclusions: The findings suggest that COVID-19 infection affected worsening of presenteeism.