Associations between adverse working hours and nurses’ sickness absence: a longitudinal analysis of e-roster data from acute hospital wards

OBJECTIVE: To examine the associations between registered nurses' shift work patterns and sickness absence in hospital inpatient wards. DESIGN: Retrospective longitudinal study using 1.4 million e-roster and sickness absence records analysed with logistic mixed-effects models. SETTING: All adult acute inpatient hospital wards in two large healthcare organisations (Trusts) in England. PARTICIPANTS: Registered nurses (N=7515) working across 95 adult acute wards in 2015-2020. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURE: Nurses' sickness absence in relation to the shift pattern configurations worked in the previous 7 days. Logistic mixed-effects models were adjusted for total working hours, bank hours, previous sickness and part-time status. RESULTS: Higher odds of sickness absence were significantly associated with each additional rest period of fewer than 11.5 hours (OR 1.23, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.27, p