Diagnosis, knowledge, perception, and productivity impact of headache education and clinical evaluation program in the workplace at an information technology company of more than 70,000 employees

Abstract

Background: Migraine is a highly prevalent, disabling, misunderstood, underdiagnosed, and undertreated neurological disease. It is a leading cause of productivity loss in the workplace. Methods: This is the first large-scale company-wide headache education and evaluation program in the workplace. Results: 73,432 (90.5%) Fujitsu employees participated. The prevalence of migraine was 16.7%, tension-type headache 40.7%, and cluster headache 0.5%. After completing the training, 82.9% of participants without headache said they would change their attitude towards colleagues with headache disorders and 72.5% of total participants said their understanding of headache changed. The proportion of employees who thought that headache had a significant impact on people’s lives increased from 46.8% to 70.6%; 2971 (4.1%) of all participants were interested in a virtual consultation with a headache specialist as part of the program, more than half of whom had not previously consulted for headache. Approximately 14.7 days per year of full productivity per employee with headache were gained resulting in an annual productivity saving per employee of US$4531. Conclusion: This unique headache workplace program was associated with a high level of participation, an improvement in the understanding of migraine and attitude towards colleagues with migraine, reduction in disability and increased employee productivity, and decreased costs of lost productivity due to migraine. Workplace programs for migraine should be considered for all industry sectors.