Pereira, FilipaQuerido, AnaVerloo, HenkBieri, MarionLaranjeira, Carlos2023-05-192023-05-192022-09-25Pereira, F., Querido, A., Verloo, H., Bieri, M., & Laranjeira, C. (2022). Consequences of Nurse Presenteeism in Switzerland and Portugal and Strategies to Minimize It: A Qualitative Study. Healthcare, 10(10), 1871. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare101018711871http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/8486Funding: This work was funded by three national funding programs: FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (UIDB/05704/2020 and UIDP/05704/2020), CCISP-HES.SO Collaborative Research, and the Scientific Employment Stimulus-Institutional Call (CEECINST/00051/2018). Institutional Review Board Statement: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by ethics committees in both countries: the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Canton of Vaud (no. 2021–00071), Switzerland, and the Ethics Committee of the Polytechnic of Leiria (no. CE/IPLEIRIA/44/2020).Nurses exhibit higher rates of presenteeism than other professionals, with consequences for the quality of care and patient safety. However, nurses’ perceptions of these issues have been poorly explored. This study investigated the perceptions and experiences of frontline nurses and nurse managers in Switzerland and Portugal about the consequences of presenteeism and strategies to minimize it in different healthcare settings. Our qualitative study design used video focus groups involving 55 participants from both countries. Thematic analysis of their transcribed discussions revealed six themes surrounding the consequences of presenteeism: the personal impact on nurses’health and wellbeing, on their family relationships, and on professional frustration and dissatisfaction;the professional impact on work dynamics; the social impact on the quality of care and patient safety and on society’s impressions of the profession. At the individual, collective, and institutional levels, six strategies were evoked to minimize presenteeism: encouraging professionals’ self-knowledge; creating a positive work atmosphere; facilitating communication channels; developing a positive organizational culture; implementing preventive/curative institutional interventions; identifying and documenting situations linked to presenteeism. Nurses’ perceptions and experiences provided a deeper understanding of their presenteeism and revealed underused pathways toward preventing and minimizing presenteeism via bottom-up approaches.engEmployee healthPresenteeismNursing workQuality of carePatient safetyQualitative researchFocus groupjournal articlehttps://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare101018712227-9032