[Absenteeism due to alcoholism in a federal installation]

Abstract

Absence due to sickness of 25 chronic alcoholics in a Swiss Federal company was compared with that of 75 control subjects parallelized as far as possible. Only those alcoholics were studied who worked in the company throughout the observation period (1966-1975) and whose records with the Federal Medical Service bore the diagnosis "chronic alcoholism". Through shortterm absences (up to 3 days) the alcoholics lost 1.7 days annually compared with 0.9 days for the control group. The average number of shortterm absences among the alcoholics was 0.8 and 0.4 in the control group. Through absences due to illness or accidents (absences of more than 3 days) the alcholics lost 22.3 days annually compared with 7.0 days for controls. The average number of longterm absences was 0.7 for alcoholics and 0.4 for controls. The average cost of absenteeism was 3193.10 Swiss francs for the alcholics and 790.80 Swiss francs for each member of the control group. First notification of alcohol problems of an employee came from within the company in 80% of cases. Striking features were mainly drinking before and during work and erratic time-keeping. In 88% of cases the treatment was disulfiram cure and supportive psychotherapy in 12%. In the next 3 years 4 alcoholics (30.7%) had further episodes of drinking, while 9 (69.3%) showed no sign of alcohol abuse. 12 alcoholics could not be assessed asfollow-up was too short.