Employee and Employer Benefits From a Migraine Management Program: Disease Outcomes and Cost Analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of a migraine management program offered as a complimentary service by a company within its corporate well-being program. BACKGROUND: Migraine imposes a substantial burden on patients, families, employers, and societies. As migraine primarily affects working-age adults, this has important implications for both employees and employers. Workplace educational and well-being programs positively contribute to employees' productivity, reduce costs related to absenteeism, and improve the quality of life of the employees living with migraine. METHODS: This was a non-interventional cohort study, which followed employees and their family members over time. Participants received 1 telemedicine consultation to determine migraine diagnosis or a high probability of having migraine and 6 sessions of individualized telecoaching from a specialized nurse via a specially developed smartphone application to optimize their migraine management leveraging all appropriate medical and lifestyle options. Participants were evaluated during the program and at 3 months after completion through a series of validated questionnaires including Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS), Patient Activation Measure (PAM), and satisfaction with the services offered. A cost analysis was also performed to determine the economic benefit of the program considering the number of completers, dropouts, their associated program costs, MIDAS data, average salary of a Swiss employee in the pharma sector, and working days per year. RESULTS: Of the 141 participants enrolled in the program, 79 completed 6-month and 42 completed 9-month assessments. The total MIDAS scores (mean, standard deviation [SD]) significantly improved from baseline by 54% at Month 6 (15.0 [13.6] vs 6.9 [8.2]; mean [SD] reduction: 8.1 [12.9], 95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.6-10.6; P < .0001) and by 64% at Month 9 (15.4 [14.7] vs 5.6 [6.0]; mean [SD] reduction: 9.8 [14.0], 95% CI: 6.6-13.0; P < .0001). The PAM scores also significantly improved from baseline by 8% at Month 6 (63.8 [10.9] vs 69.6 [12.8]; mean [SD] increase: 5.8 [12.8], 95% CI: 3.2-8.4; P = .003) and 11% at Month 9 (63.5 [10.7] vs 71.3 [12.2]; mean [SD] increase: 7.8 [11.0], 95% CI: 4.3-11.2; P = .003). At Month 6, common coaching lessons and respective action plans focused on progressive muscle relaxation, sleep, hydration, nutrition, general disease education, and stress management. The exit survey showed that the majority of the participants who completed the program had a meaningful and sustained improvement in their overall health and reported a high level of satisfaction with the program. The cost analysis revealed that on average participants gained 10.8 (95% CI: 9.3-12.3) working days/year that were previously lost due to migraine, resulting in a positive return on investment (ROI) of 490% (95% CI: 410%-570%), indicating a higher magnitude of savings that could be achieved by the implementation of such program. In addition to ROI and work productivity gained, participants also gained on average 13.6 (95% CI: 9.9-17.3) migraine-free days/year for their private and social life. CONCLUSION: The employer-sponsored disease management program provided a better understanding of migraine, promoted methods and approaches to improve management by combining medical and lifestyle options leading to significant improvements in migraine symptoms that sustained beyond the intervention, supporting prolonged effectiveness of such programs. The program also provided a high ROI to the employer, supporting that the systematic inclusion of such programs into corporate well-being initiatives can be of significant benefit not only to the impacted individuals but to the employers as well.

The impact of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on migraine disorder.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of the Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on patients with migraine. METHODS: Self-reported data from a migraine tracking smartphone application, Migraine Buddy, were used. Data were collected from users who reported at least one attack in the Jan, Feb, Mar and Apr of 2018, 2019 and 2020. In addition, a survey was conducted to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on migraine management. RESULTS: On average, data from 124,717 users per month (mean age 36.3 ± 10.9 years and 89% female) were collected. Overall, the mean frequency of migraine headache was higher in 2020 than in 2019 and higher in 2019 than in 2018. The four commonest headache triggers in 2018, 2019 and 2020 were stress in 39.7, 38.4 and 36.1%, lack of sleep in 25, 25 and 22.8%, neck pain, 20, 20.4 and 19.3 and anxiety in 19, 18.4 and 18.4% of participants, respectively. 1689 users participated in the survey and they reported that they preferred face-to-face (54.29%) to telehealth (11.9%) consultations. CONCLUSION: An increase in migraine frequency from 2018 to 2020 was reported by the users of the mobile phone. This could reflect a real increase or change in reporting habits. Stress, lack of sleep, neck pain and anxiety were the commonest attack triggers. The frequency of these triggers decreased slightly in 2020 compared to 2019 and 2018. An increase in telehealth consultations with specialists was reported in the survey but migraine patients preferred face-to-face consultations.