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Multicenter Study
. 2021 Nov 26;39(48):7021-7027.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.10.054. Epub 2021 Oct 30.

COVID-19 vaccination significantly reduces morbidity and absenteeism among healthcare personnel: A prospective multicenter study

Helena C Maltezou  1 , Periklis Panagopoulos  2 , Flora Sourri  3 , Theodoros V Giannouchos  4 , Vasilios Raftopoulos  5 , Maria N Gamaletsou  6 , Amalia Karapanou  7 , Dimitra-Maria Koukou  8 , Athanasia Koutsidou  9 , Emmanuela Peskelidou  10 , Konstantina Papanastasiou  11 , Kyriakos Souliotis  12 , Athanasia Lourida  13 , Nikolaos V Sipsas  6 , Dimitrios Hatzigeorgiou  14
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

COVID-19 vaccination significantly reduces morbidity and absenteeism among healthcare personnel: A prospective multicenter study

Helena C Maltezou et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

Aim: Healthcare personnel (HCP) are prioritized for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination to protect them and non-disruptive provision of healthcare services. We assessed the impact of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on morbidity and absenteeism among HCP.

Methods: We studied 7445 HCP in five tertiary-care hospitals in Greece from November 15, 2020 through April 18, 2021.

Results: A total of 910 episodes of absenteeism and 9695 days of absence were recorded during the entire study period. Starting from January 4, 2021, 4823/7445 HCP (64.8%) were fully or partially vaccinated. Overall, 535 episodes of absenteeism occurred from January 4, 2021 through April 18, 2021, including 309 (57.76%) episodes among 2622 unvaccinated HCP and 226 (42.24%) episodes among 4823 vaccinated HCP (11.8 versus 4.7 episodes of absenteeism per 100 HCP, respectively; p-value < 0.001). The mean duration of absenteeism was 11.9 days among unvaccinated HCP compared with 6.9 days among vaccinated HCP (p-value < 0.001). Unvaccinated HCP more frequently developed acute respiratory infection, influenza-like illness, and COVID-19 (p-values < 0.001 for all comparisons). Vaccine effectiveness for fully vaccinated HCP was estimated at 94.16% [confidence interval (CI): 88.50%-98.05%) against COVID-19, 83.62% (CI: 73.36%-90.38%) against SARS-CoV-2 infection (asymptomatic or COVID-19), and 66.42% (CI: 56.86%-74.15%) against absenteeism.

Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic had a considerable impact on healthcare workforce. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine significantly reduced morbidity, COVID-19, absenteeism and duration of absenteeism among HCP during a period of high SARS-CoV-2 circulation in the community. It is expected that HCP vaccination will protect them and healthcare services and contain healthcare costs.

Keywords: Absenteeism; COVID-19; Healthcare personnel; Morbidity; Vaccination.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Number of episodes of absenteeism per week among HCP by COVID- 19 vaccination status and cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to HCP in five hospitals in Greece, November 15, 2020 to April 18, 2021.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Number of total days of absence per week among HCP by COVID-19 v vaccination status and cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to HCP in in five hospitals in Greece, November 15, 2020 to April 18, 2021.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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