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Review
. 2022 Jun 6:27:100408.
doi: 10.1016/j.ensci.2022.100408. eCollection 2022 Jun.

Migraine in the workplace

Olivia Begasse de Dhaem  1 , Fumihiko Sakai  2
Affiliations
Review

Migraine in the workplace

Olivia Begasse de Dhaem et al. eNeurologicalSci. .

Abstract

Migraine is prevalent, disabling, and peaks during people's peak productive years. The impact of migraine on people's professional lives, work productivity, and interpersonal relationships at work eventually affects everyone, has a significant detrimental effect on people with migraine, and a huge cost in terms of lost productivity. People with migraine want to work, so they do their best to work despite the varied migraine related and associated symptoms. Most of migraine-related productivity loss (89%) is due to presenteeism. People are less than half effective during a migraine attack due to the pain, migraine symptoms, attack unpredictability, migraine comorbidities, emotional impact, under-diagnosis and under-management, and the stigma. Migraine-related productivity loss may negatively affect people's career choice, job status and/or security, financial status, work relationships, mood, and confidence. Migraine is estimated to represent 16% of total US workforce presenteeism. Thankfully, there are ways to help support people with migraine in the workplace and increase their productivity such as: workplace migraine education programs, workplace migraine education and management programs, migraine-friendly work environment, migraine treatment optimization and advocacy. The example of the successful workplace migraine education and management program developed and run in collaboration between Fujitsu, the Japanase Headache Society, and the International Headache Society Global Patient Advocacy Coalition is discussed.

Keywords: Absenteeism; Accommodation; Disability; Headache; Presenteeism; Productivity; Stigma.

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Conflict of interest statement

Olivia Begasse de Dhaem serves as an Executive Editor for the Pain Medicine Journal and as a consultant for Neurolytic Healthcare. Fumihiko Sakai is consultant for Amgen, Lilly and Ohtsuka. He received a grant with his team for the international research cooperation promotion project from the Japan Public Health Association, which supported the publication of a prior manuscript: Shimizu T, Sakai F, Miyake H, Sone T, Sato M, Tanabe S, et al. Disability, quality of life, productivity impairment and employer costs of migraine in the workplace. J Headache Pain. 2021 Apr 21;22 (1):29. Both Olivia Begasse de Dhaem and Fumihiko Sakai are members of the Executive Committee of the International Headache Society Global Patient Advocacy Coalition (IHS-GPAC) for which they do not receive any funding. This study was done independently of any company. The authors did not receive any compensation nor funding from corporate companies for this study. The authors did not receive any funding from Fujitsu. The results were obtained without influence from Fujitsu.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Overview of the FUJITSU Headache Project.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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