Through a secondary analysis of data through a mobile health headache diary, researchers looked to assess the association between medication adherence for the acute treatment of migraine and lifetime history of depression or anxiety disorder. Researchers asked adult participants who had a previous diagnosis of migraine with at least 4 headache days/month to fill out baseline questionnaires to evaluate their history of depression or anxiety disorder diagnoses along with recording a 90-day electronic diary once-daily requesting occurrence of headache, symptoms, medication (if any) that has been taken for the acute treatment of migraine, and level of pain when they had taken the medication. A total of 193 patients were included in this analysis, who completed at least 30 days of the diary.

On 45.7% of headache days, a migraine-specific medication was the first medication used. Approximately 23% of the participants were found to overuse medications for the treatment of acute migraine, and it was found that the overuse of medication was more frequent in those with an anxiety disorder history (odds ratio 2.01; 95% confidence interval 1.01–3.69); however, this relationship was not substantial on headache days. Taking a migraine-specific medication early was not linked to a lifetime history of depression or anxiety disorder. It was found that, even when adjusting for an anxiety or depression disorder history, improvement occurred gradually with participants taking a migraine-specific medication early.

Reference: Butler N, Snyder IC, Korn TG, Nicholson RA, Robbins MS, Seng EK. Lifetime history of an anxiety or depression disorder and adherence to medications used for the acute treatment of migraine [published online ahead of print, 2023 Feb 8]. Headache. 2023;10.1111/head.14477. doi:10.1111/head.14477

Link: https://headachejournal.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/head.14477