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Shift work and migraine: A systematic review

Veruscka Leso, Paola Gervetti, Sara Mauro, Maria Carmela Macrini, Maria Luigia Ercolano, Ivo Iavicoli

Journal of Occupational Health, 2020

34 citations

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Migraine is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent attacks of headache, mainly affecting the working age population with a great socioeconomic impact. The etiology of migraine is still uncertain, and various individual and/or environmental risk factors have been suggested as triggers of the attacks, including irregularities in the sleep-wake rhythm. In this perspective, it is possible that shift and night work, affecting circadian rhythms, may play a key function in the disease pathogenesis. Therefore, aim of this review was to provide an overview on the possible association between shift works and migraine development or clinical outcomes. METHODS: A systematic review of literature studies available in Pubmed, Scopus, and ISI Web of Science databases, addressing the possible shift work-migraine relationship was performed. RESULTS: Conflicting data emerged from the revised studies. Some results supported a positive association between migraine prevalence and shift works, according to peculiar job tasks, seniority in shift works, specific work schedules, and number of night shifts performed in a month. However, other investigations failed to confirm such findings. CONCLUSIONS: The limited number of available studies, their cross-sectional nature, the different criteria employed for migraine diagnosis, and the various shift work schedules analyzed, together with exposure to other confounding factors on workplace do not allow to extrapolate…

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