Annual individual correlation of insomnia to presenteeism equal to 11.3 days of lost work
THURSDAY, Sept. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Insomnia is associated with substantial workplace costs in the United States, and is significantly associated with presenteeism, but not absenteeism, according to a study published in the Sept. 1 issue of SLEEP.
Ronald C. Kessler, Ph.D., from the Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues assessed the prevalence and associations of broadly defined insomnia with work performance in 7,428 employed health-plan subscribers, aged 18 years or older, who participated in the America Insomnia Survey (AIS). The Brief Insomnia Questionnaire was used to evaluate insomnia, and the World Health Organization Health and Work Performance Questionnaire (HPQ) was used to evaluate work absenteeism and presenteeism (defined as low work performance in the metric of lost workday equivalents). Associations between insomnia and HPQ scores covering 26 comorbid conditions based on self-report and medical/pharmacy claims records were evaluated.
The investigators found that the estimated prevalence of insomnia was 23.2 percent. There was a significant correlation between insomnia and lost work performance due to presenteeism but not absenteeism, with an annualized individual-level association of insomnia with presenteeism equivalent to 11.3 days of lost work performance. This assessment was reduced to 7.8 days when controls were introduced for comorbid conditions. The individual-level human capital value of this net estimate was $2,280. Assuming that these estimates generalize to the total U.S. work force, the net-loss estimates were equivalent to an annualized population-level total of 252.7 million days and $63.2 billion.
"Insomnia is associated with substantial workplace costs. Although experimental studies suggest some of these costs could be recovered with insomnia disease management programs, effectiveness trials are needed to obtain precise estimates of return-on-investment of such interventions from the employer perspective," the authors write.
Several of the study authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, including Merck, which funded the study, and Sanofi-Aventis, which funded the AIS.
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