Migraine
Migraine is one of the most common and disabling neurological diseases, and has a significant impact on the patient's family, social and occupational life, especially when the attacks are frequent or even daily.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), migraine is the third most common disease in the world.
The WHO recognizes migraine as a disabling neurological disease that reduces the quality of life of patients. Due to its prevalence and its disabling nature, migraine can be considered a real social disease with high economic costs, both direct (medical expenses, medications, hospitalizations) and indirect (loss of work productivity, absenteeism). Considering the fact that migraine patients are forced, because of their migraine attacks, to limit their educational and occupational commitments, as well as social and family activities, it is easy to understand how the indirect costs (eg. loss of productivity) are significantly higher than the direct costs. To this high socioeconomic burden must be added the impact of the so-called intangible costs, which cannot be measured directly (such as pain, anxiety, etc.) and which affect the patient's quality of life.
In addition, compared with other chronic diseases, migraineurs have a higher incidence of comorbidities (eg. anxiety and depression), so they consult more often their physician and require a greater number of diagnostic tests. All these data suggest that a more effective prevention and treatment of migraine is crucial to reduce the impact of this severe disease on the emotional, family, social and occupational life of patients. Given the negative effects of untreated or undertreated migraine, in terms of higher indirect costs, falling on a large part of the migraineurs population, pharmacotherapeutic strategies of prevention and early intervention can be very effective even from an economic point of view.
The use of effective therapeutic strategies can indeed significantly reduce the negative economic impact of migraine on worker productivity.
In this regard, treatment with triptans has been shown to significantly reduce the hours or days of work lost due to migraine.