The Effect of Endometriosis Symptoms on Absenteeism and Presenteeism in the Workplace and at Home

Abstract

The design and financial support for this study was provided by AbbVie. AbbVie participated in data analysis, interpretation of data, review, and approval of the manuscript. Coyne and Gries are employees of Evidera- Evidence, Value & Access by PPD and were paid scientific consultants for AbbVie in connection with this study. Soliman, Castelli-Hayley, and Snabes are AbbVie employees and may own AbbVie stock or stock options. Surrey is affiliated with Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine and was paid by AbbVie as a consultant for this project. Surrey serves as a consultant for AbbVie outside of this project. All authors participated in data analysis and interpretation, and contributed to the development of the manuscript. The authors maintained control over the final contents of the manuscript and the decision to publish. Study concept and design were contributed by Soliman, Coyne, Gries, and Castelli-Haley. Soliman, Castelli-Haley, Coyne, and Gries collected the data, and data interpretation was performed by Snabes, Surrey, Soliman, Coyne, and Gries. The manuscript was written and revised by Soliman, Coyne, and Gries, along with the other authors.

Preliminary insights on the relation between endometriosis, pelvic pain, and employment

“…The fact that endometriosis has a negative impact on women's professional life is neither new, nor surprising [3,4,6]. A recent review of the literature [21] highlighted that the economic burden of endometriosis is associated with both direct costs (inpatient and outpatient costs, pharmacological treatments, and other healthcare services) and indirect costs due to decreased work productivity, sick leave and time off to attend medical appointments, or even loss of employment, although with great worldwide variations (see also [22][23][24][25]). Of the 12 studies included in this 2016 review by Soliman et al [21], only one [26] was conducted in Italy and reported drug regimen costs per patient per 6 months, while a 10-country study by Nnoaham et al [17] showed that Italian endometriosis patients reported the highest absenteeism-related costs (US$231/wk) and the second highest presenteeism costs (around US$230/wk) after the patients belonging to the United States.…”

Endometriosis – The challenge for occupational life of diagnosed women: A review of quantitative studies

“…Most authors used standardized tools to measure workrelated variables: Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire [16,24,25], a short version of Work Ability Index [8], Global Study of Women's Health Questionnaire [24], work-related module of the Endometriosis Health Profile [8] or Health-Related Productivity Questionnaire [23]. Two teams of researchers developed their own surveys [9,16].…”

“…In the reviewed studies, women were identified in patients' registers and invited to the study by post or e-mail [8,10,16,22,23] or they were recruited from hospital wards [9,24,25].…”

“…With the exception of Nnoaham et al study [24] that was conducted in 16 clinics in 10 European countries, North and South America and Asia, all the other studies referred to local societies: central America [10,16], Denmark [8], Italy [25], Norway [9] and USA [23]. The smallest study group included 78 women [9] and the largest -1318 [23].…”

“…Soliman et al [23] calculated that women lost 1.1 work h/week and 6.6 days/year on average because of absenteeism; and 5.3 work h/week and 31.8 days per year due to unproductive days at work (presenteeism).…”