[Sick leaves in military residents and COVID-19 in Mexico].

Background: The training of health personnel is a priority on global, regional and national agendas. Sick leave is the mechanism that protects people from carrying out activities that may aggravate their health status. In Mexico, there is little information about sick leaves in resident doctors, military doctors in training and even more about the effect of the pandemic on this.

Objective: To compare the incidence of sick leaves in resident doctors of the Military Graduate School of Health in the face of the appearance of COVID-19.

Material and methods: The study population was medical personnel in training which was active in the 2020 cycle. The design was observational and longitudinal of the sick leaves that occurred before the pandemic (cycle 2019) and during the pandemic (cycles 2020 and 2021). Incidence rates were estimated and compared.

Results: 204 residents were included, out of which 49.5% presented at least one sick leave. The incidences due to Other causes were 3.2, 4.4 and 8.3 cases per school year 2019-2021, respectively, while due to COVID-19 it was 33.3% (2020) and 6.9% (2021). The incidence ratio between pandemic (2020)/pre-pandemic (2019) periods was 12.4 and it was statistically significant. The incidence of COVID-19 increased by year of residence, with an incidence ratio (advanced years/initial years) of 1.5.

Conclusions: The incidence of sick leaves increased significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The incidence rate of sick leaves due to COVID-19 was increasing per year of residence.