Migraine Imposes High Economic Burden
Direct, indirect, and societal costs were all significantly higher among patients with migraine compared with patients without migraine, according to a recent study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
For the study, researchers used MarketScan claims and Health and Productivity Management databases to identify 26,647 commercially insured patients with migraine, who were then propensity score matched 1:1 with controls. Some 4323 participants were matched for work absence and 26,212 for short-term disability eligibility.
Patients with migraine had mean annualized direct costs of $13,032 compared with $3234 for controls, indirect costs due to absence of $4104 compared with $3531 for controls, and indirect costs due to short-term disability of $1131 compared with $52 for controls, the study found.
Mean annualized societal costs due to absence were $16,043 for patients with migraine compared with $6938 for controls. For short-term disability, annual societal costs were $14,278 for patients with migraine and $3182 for patients without migraine.
“Migraine imposes high direct and indirect economic burden on payers and society due to significantly higher work productivity loss than controls,” researchers wrote.
—Jolynn Tumolo
Reference
Gilligan AM, Foster SA, Sainski-Nguyen A, Sedgley R, Smith D, Morrow P. Direct and indirect costs among United States commercially insured employees with migraine. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2018;60(12):1120-1127.
