The number of sick leave among nursing staff has risen sharply again in the past year. According to data from Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), sick leave increased by 40 percent compared to 2021. With an average of almost 30 days absent, nursing staff were around 57 percent above the average for all employees in 2022. The most common diagnoses were mental illnesses, respiratory infections and back problems.
According to the TK data, geriatric nurses are sick on average four and a half days longer per year than nurses in hospitals. In the past ten years since 2012, the number of days absent for geriatric nurses was around 25 a year, and for nurses around 21.5 days. In all other sectors together, employees have been absent an average of 14 days a year over the past ten years, in the Corona year 2022 it was 18 days.
According to TK, the sharp increase in sick leave for nursing staff is not only due to the corona pandemic. For years, one has observed consistently high absenteeism in this heavily burdened professional group, it said. TK collected the data on the occasion of Nursing Day on May 12, based on the certificates of incapacity for work of the approximately 5.6 million employees who are insured with TK. (epd)
