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Abstract
In Europe, the one-year prevalence of migraine is 14.9% and migraine is on the top-10 list of leading causes of years lost to disability. Sleep disturbances and irregular daily routines are considered triggers of migraine and these factors are well-known consequences of shift work. We studied the association between treatment-seeking migraine and shift work, categorised as fixed evening work, fixed night work and variable working hours with and without night work in a Danish working population of 5872 participants. When compared with fixed day workers, only participants with fixed evening work were found to have significantly increased odds of reporting treatment-seeking migraine after adjustment for socio-demographic and behavioural covariates (OR = 1.56; 95% CI 1.05–2.32). Participants with seniority of 10 years or more notably accounted for this association. Due to the cross-sectional design, selection mechanisms may have biased the results.
Practitioner Summary: The study showed higher odds of treatment-seeking migraine among evening workers even when taking a range of potential confounders into account. Due to the cross-sectional design, we cannot draw any causal inferences, but potential mechanisms underlying the present study are discussed, with an emphasis on possible selection into evening work.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the National Research Centre for the Working Environment where the research data were made available and analyses conducted. The authors are grateful to Jesper Møller Pedersen from The Occupational Surveillance group at The National Research Centre for the Working Environment for valuable assistance with access to and quality assurance of data. The collection of data is funded through a governmental grant.