Yahoo Finance This condition is so common - but it costs sufferers $30k a year
The 730,000 Australian women living with endometriosis are dealing with much more than crippling pain; they’re also suffering financially.
According to new research released today by Western Sydney University researchers, Mike Armour and Kenny Lawson, the average cost for a woman with endometriosis is $30,000 for both her and society
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With one-in-10 women reported as having endometriosis, that’s a massive $9.7 billion a year.
“Most of these costs are not from medication, or doctors’ visits, although these do play a part. Rather, they’re due to lost productivity, as women are unable to work – or work to their usual level of efficiency – while experiencing high levels of pain,” the researchers wrote in The Conversation.
The condition, which affects around one-in-10 adult women, is caused by the growth of tissue outside the uterus and leads to severe pain during, and outside of, periods, fatigue, pain during sexual intercourse and severe bloating.
And the women surveyed reported having little success with pain management, with several treatments offering “limited efficacy” while triggering “problematic side effects”.
The researchers surveyed more than 400 women diagnosed with endometriosis or experiencing chronic pelvic pain to find out about the healthcare costs, including those publicly funded, employment, childcare and household maintenance costs, in addition to their pain levels.
They found that one fifth of the $30,000 spent a year was attributed to the health sector, with medicine, doctors’ appointments, hospital visits, reproductive services like IVF and transport costs all adding up. Out-of-pocket costs were around $1,200 of the $6,000.
“The bulk of the costs (over 80 per cent) were due to lost productivity, either because of absenteeism (being off work) or presenteeism (not being as productive as usual because you’re sick),” the researchers added.
“Women with endometriosis often use up all their sick leave and then often have to work when they are in severe pain.”
Funding for endometriosis research is critical, the researchers said, noting that the economic burden of endometriosis was around the same as diabetes, but has attracted little research funding.
“Reducing pain, by even a modest 10-20 per cent, could improve women’s quality of life and potentially save billions of dollars each year.”
Period pain sees Aussie women lose 9 days’ worth of productivity
Dutch research published in June found that period pain sees women lose nearly nine days of productivity every year.
The study found that working while unwell also caused more problems than if women had just taken the day off.
“Women said that they weren't as productive as they could be while at work – they needed to go to the toilet every hour or they had a headache and couldn't concentrate," said Theodoor Nieboer, a report author and a gynecologist at the Radboud University Medical Center.
It found that less than 14 per cent of women took time off during their periods, with 80.7 per cent reporting they went to work even when they felt unwell.
“Menstruation-related symptoms cause a great deal of lost productivity, and presenteeism is a bigger contributor to this than absenteeism,” the study said.
“There is an urgent need for more focus on the impact of these symptoms, especially in women aged under 21 years, for discussions of treatment options with women of all ages and, ideally, more flexibility for women who work or go to school.”
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