Self-reported headache among the employees of a Swiss university hospital: prevalence, disability, current treatment, and economic impact

Abstract

Background: The objectives of this cross-sectional, observational study were to determine the prevalence of self-reported headache among the employees of the large Swiss university hospital, to measure the impact of headache using the MIDAS questionnaire, to assess current treatment and to estimate economic burden of headache considering indirect costs.

Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was distributed internally to 2000 randomly selected employees of the University Hospital Zurich.

Results: 1210 employees (60.5%) responded. Of the 1192 (98.5%) employees who provided sufficiently complete information, 723 (61%) reported at least one headache type in the last three months. The prevalence of migraine, and tension-type headache was 20% and 50%, respectively. Regarding the occupational groups, there was a trend that healthcare staff, administration employees, and medical technicians suffered more from headaches than physicians, correcting for age and sex. The economic consequences of lost productivity were calculated to amount to approximately 14 million Swiss Francs (9.5 million EUR), representing 3.2% of the overall annual expenditure of the hospital for personnel.

Conclusion: Headache is highly prevalent among university hospital employees, with significant economic impact.

Figure 1

Comparison of age (a), gender (b) and occupation (c) among the 1192 respondents and all university hospital employees (in %). (b) Comparison of gender distribution among the 1192 respondents with those of University hospital employees (in %). (c) Comparison of distribution of occupation in the sample of 1192 respondents with the distribution of occupation of the university hospital employees in total (in %).

Figure 2

Flow chart of the study: Participation and sample characteristics.

Figure 3

Percentage of employees with headache distributed according to occupational groups. After correction for age and sex there was at trend that healthcare staff, administration, and medical technicians suffered more from headaches than physicians. See text. The absolute numbers of respondents are given on the respective columns.

Figure 4

MIDAS grades in respondents with migraine and tension-type headache employed in a Swiss university hospital. Grade 1 (scores 0–5) = little or no disability; grade 2 (scores 6–10) = mild disability; grade 3 (scores 11–20) = moderate disability; grade 4 (score ≥ 21) = severe disability [14]. There was significant association between headache diagnosis and MIDAS grade (p<0.001).