Demand For Sickness Certificate To Cover Absenteeism in Examinations in Postgraduate Education: A Cross- Sectinal Prevalence Study

Background: This study was designed to evaluate the postgraduate students’ behavior in demanding sickness certificates for rest in examination periods. Methods: A characteristic of sickness certificate was to present an excuse for absenteeism in the mid-term examinations, provided to 14 graduate and 9 undergraduate schools were analyzed quantitatively. Results: The 80.1% (1795) of reports were prescribed for graduate students and of them most frequently delivered sickness certifications were faculty of engineering and faculty of science respectively (786 students 35.1% and 435 students 19.4% respectively). Conclusion: The coexistence of providing sickness certificates for rest in periods in which examinations are concentrated and proposing short periods of rest strongly suggests that nonmedical reasons are mostly cause of prescribing rest to cover absenteeism.