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International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health
Published in: International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 5/2020

01-07-2020 | Migraine | Original Article

The longitudinal association between shift work and headache: results from the Danish PRISME cohort

Authors: Andreas Moses Appel, Eszter Török, Marie Aarrebo Jensen, Anne Helene Garde, Åse Marie Hansen, Linda Kaerlev, Matias Brødsgaard Grynderup, Kirsten Nabe-Nielsen

Published in: International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health | Issue 5/2020

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Abstract

Purpose

We investigated the effect of shift work on headache. Furthermore, we investigated whether the association between shift work and headache was explained by potential mediators in terms of perceived stress, poor sleep and health behaviors.

Methods

In this longitudinal study, we used questionnaire data (collected in 2007 and 2009) from civil servants and hospital employees from the PRISME study. 2952 individuals were available for the analyses of shift work and headache and 2272 individuals were available for the analyses of shift work and migraine. Headache was operationalized as the participants’ experience of “being bothered by headache during the past 4 weeks”. Migraine was operationalized as “ever being diagnosed with migraine by a medical doctor”. We used binary logistic regression to compare shift workers with permanent day workers and adjusted for socio-demographic factors. In a subsequent step, we adjusted for potential mediators.

Results

We found higher odds of unspecific headache (OR = 1.25; 95% CI 1.02–1.54) and migraine (OR = 1.72; 95% CI 1.04–2.86) among shift workers compared with day workers. Our results suggest that the effect of shift work on headache and migraine differ between men and women. Inclusion of potential mediators in the analyses did not attenuate the associations.

Conclusion

Shift workers have higher risk of reporting being bothered by headache as well as reporting being diagnosed with migraine. Future research is needed to disentangle the underlying mechanisms with the aim of reducing headache related to occupational exposures.
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Metadata
Title
The longitudinal association between shift work and headache: results from the Danish PRISME cohort
Authors
Andreas Moses Appel
Eszter Török
Marie Aarrebo Jensen
Anne Helene Garde
Åse Marie Hansen
Linda Kaerlev
Matias Brødsgaard Grynderup
Kirsten Nabe-Nielsen
Publication date
01-07-2020
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Keywords
Migraine
Headache
Published in
International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health / Issue 5/2020
Print ISSN: 0340-0131
Electronic ISSN: 1432-1246
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-019-01512-6

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