*4.1. Sickness Absenteeism*

The average annual rate of days of absence of civil servants of the three Legislative Houses in this study was 8.73 d/s/yr, which is relatively moderate when compared to other national and international cases of work absences in the public service due to health problems. The sickness absenteeism of civil servants of the City Halls of Goiania, between 2005 and 2010, and Coritiba, between 2010 and 2015, had an average of working days lost of 12.07 d/s/yr [4] and 23.04 d/s/yr, respectively [6]. Similar studies with civil servants in Canada and Australia indicated an average civil servant absence of 11.6 d/s/yr [5]. However, much lower values of days away from work in the public sector have been reported, as in the case of the UK countries that achieved an average annual working day loss of 4.4 d/s/yr in 2018.

The poorer results of sick leave in the legislative houses of the present study may be related to the less adverse general working conditions in the executive branch, mainly in the areas of education, health, and public security. These areas present frequent occurrences of absence from work due to health problems, considering the pathological potential of these sectors, due to direct contact with the public, high social demand for such services, or operational difficulties faced by educators and health and public safety professionals. Moreover, the legislative servants participating in this study perform only internal administrative activities of support to parliamentarians and have their own health service that provides care, including basic health promotion actions.
