Category FAQs Search : Health
Question: Barriers to effective care
Answer: A. Lack of knowledge among health-care providers is the principal clinical barrier.
Worldwide, on average, only 4 hours of undergraduate medical education are dedicated to instruction on headache disorders. A large number of people with headache disorders are not diagnosed and treated: worldwide only 40% of those with migraine or TTH are professionally diagnosed, and only 10% of those with MOH.
B. Poor awareness extends to the general public.
Headache disorders are not perceived by the public as serious since they are mostly episodic, do not cause death, and are not contagious. The low consultation rates in developed countries may indicate that many affected people are unaware that effective treatments exist. Half of people with headache disorders are estimated to be self-treating.
C. Many governments, seeking to constrain health-care costs, do not acknowledge the substantial burden of headache on society.
They might not recognize that the direct costs of treating headache are small in comparison with the huge indirect-cost savings that might be made (eg, by reducing lost working days) if resources were allocated to treat headache disorders appropriately.
(Source: World Health Organization, 02 Dec 2020)
Source Link: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/headache-disorders