Occupational Integration of Adults With Severe Haemophilia in France: a Study Based on the FranceCoag Cohort

Severe haemophilia and subsequent arthropathy result in joint pain, disability and impaired health-related quality of life. Improvements in haemophilia care over the last decades might lead to expectation of a near-normal quality of life for adults with haemophilia. However, little is known about the impact of haemophilia and its treatment on social functioning. A study based on a national US cohort of 141 young men (18-34 y.o.) showed that, compared to the general US population, this cohort experienced social burdens such as unemployment and lower high-school graduation rates. Another study conducted in the framework of the HERO (Haemophilia Experiences, Results and Opportunities) international initiative showed that a majority of the 230 young adults aged 18-30 years (including 16 French participants) were employed at least part-time (62%) and most of them reported that haemophilia has had a negative impact on employment (76%) which was reported as moderate or very large by 47% of the participants. The replicability of these results could be limited by the specific socio-economic national context. In France, a survey was conducted in 2008 to assess quality of life and its determinants in children, adolescents and adults with moderate and severe haemophilia. Descriptive results on the socio-economic characteristics of the included adults showed that 51.3% of them had access to higher education (which was higher than the observed rate in the French general population in 2005, i.e. 32.5%), and that 52.1% were employed among whom 44.3% had an at-risk activity. In spite of these results which were presented in a descriptive report by the InVS (Institut de veille sanitaire - French Institute for Public Health Surveillance), some limitations could be discussed: