title: 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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Headache is highly prevalent among university hospital employees, with significant economic impact.
authors.affiliation: Gilead Sciences Switzerland Sarl, Turmstrasse 28, CH-6300, Zug, Switzerland. franz.riederer@uzh.ch.
authors.forename: Emina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sokolovic
authors.forename: Franz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Riederer
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Szucs
authors.forename: Reto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Agosti
authors.forename: Peter Stefan
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Sándor
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D004526:Efficiency; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000191:economics* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D057566:Self Report; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
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