Multinational descriptive analysis of the real-world burden of headache using the Migraine Buddy application

TY - JOUR

T1 - Multinational descriptive analysis of the real-world burden of headache using the Migraine Buddy application

AU - Goadsby, Peter J.

AU - Constantin, Luminita

AU - Ebel-Bitoun, Caty

AU - Igracki Turudic, Iva

AU - Hitier, Simon

AU - Amand-Bourdon, Caroline

AU - Stewart, Andrew

N1 - Funding Information: PJG reports, over the last 36 months, grants and personal fees from Amgen and Eli‐Lilly and Company, grant from Celgene, personal fees from Alder Biopharmaceuticals, Aeon Biopharma, Allergan, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals Inc., Clexio, Electrocore LLC, eNeura, Epalex, GlaxoSmithKline, Impel Neuropharma, Lundbeck, MundiPharma, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Santara Therapeutics, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Trigemina Inc.; WL Gore, personal fees from MedicoLegal work, Massachusetts Medical Society, Up‐to‐Date, Oxford University Press and Wolters Kluwer, and a patent on the magnetic stimulation for headache assigned to eNeura without fee. LC, CE‐B, IIT, SH, CA‐B and AS are employees of Sanofi. Funding Information: This study was funded by Sanofi. The funding body was involved in the development and approved the study design, supervised data collection and analysis, and was involved in the data interpretation. Final decisions on data interpretation remained with the authors. Editorial support was provided by Olga Ucar and Nichola Cruickshanks of inScience Communications, Springer Healthcare Ltd, UK, and was funded by Sanofi. All authors critically revised the manuscript for intellectual content. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. European Journal of Neurology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Academy of Neurology

PY - 2021/12

Y1 - 2021/12

N2 - Background and purpose: A large proportion of headache sufferers do not routinely seek medical care. App-based technologies permit the collection of real-world data over time and between countries that can help assess true burden of headache. This study used a mobile phone application to collect information on the real-world burden of self-diagnosed headache and to describe its impact on daily life in headache sufferers who do not routinely seek medical advice. Methods: This retrospective, non-interventional, cross-sectional study analysed self-reported data from users of the ‘Migraine Buddy’ app. The main objective was to describe self-reported characteristics of headache and migraine (triggers, duration, frequency), treatment patterns and impact on daily activity in headache sufferers from Australia, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. Data including demographics, self-diagnosed episode type (headache/migraine), duration, potential triggers and impact on daily activity are reported. All analyses were exploratory and performed per country. Results: Self-reported data were collected from 60,474 users between August 2016 and August 2018. Approximately 90% of users were females; >60% were aged 24–45 years. Over one-third of users reported having two to five episodes of headache or migraine per month; impact included impaired concentration, being slower and missing work or social activities. Variations across countries were observed; within countries, episode characteristics were very similar for self-diagnosed headache versus migraine. Conclusions: Headache tracking was used to describe the experience, impact and self-management approaches of migraine and headache sufferers in a real-world setting. Headache disorders present a range of important issues for patients that deserve more study and reinforce the need for better approaches to management.

AB - Background and purpose: A large proportion of headache sufferers do not routinely seek medical care. App-based technologies permit the collection of real-world data over time and between countries that can help assess true burden of headache. This study used a mobile phone application to collect information on the real-world burden of self-diagnosed headache and to describe its impact on daily life in headache sufferers who do not routinely seek medical advice. Methods: This retrospective, non-interventional, cross-sectional study analysed self-reported data from users of the ‘Migraine Buddy’ app. The main objective was to describe self-reported characteristics of headache and migraine (triggers, duration, frequency), treatment patterns and impact on daily activity in headache sufferers from Australia, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. Data including demographics, self-diagnosed episode type (headache/migraine), duration, potential triggers and impact on daily activity are reported. All analyses were exploratory and performed per country. Results: Self-reported data were collected from 60,474 users between August 2016 and August 2018. Approximately 90% of users were females; >60% were aged 24–45 years. Over one-third of users reported having two to five episodes of headache or migraine per month; impact included impaired concentration, being slower and missing work or social activities. Variations across countries were observed; within countries, episode characteristics were very similar for self-diagnosed headache versus migraine. Conclusions: Headache tracking was used to describe the experience, impact and self-management approaches of migraine and headache sufferers in a real-world setting. Headache disorders present a range of important issues for patients that deserve more study and reinforce the need for better approaches to management.

KW - headache

KW - headache impact

KW - headache triggers

KW - real-world evidence

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85113669802&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/ene.15037

DO - 10.1111/ene.15037

M3 - Article

C2 - 34309986

AN - SCOPUS:85113669802

SN - 1351-5101

VL - 28

SP - 4184

EP - 4193

JO - European Journal of Neurology

JF - European Journal of Neurology

IS - 12

ER -