Migraine and Migraines of Specialists: Perceptions and Management

Abstract

French neurologists are interested and concerned about migraine but find it challenging to treat. Migraine perceptions do not differ between neurologists who do and do not suffer from migraines themselves. Neurology training needs to prepare medical students adequately for the challenges of migraine treatment in terms of patient communication and psychiatric issues.

Headache from the Doctors' Perspective

“…We cannot exclude a participation bias and another limitation was the inability to obtain data about sociodemographic characteristics of the Portuguese practitioners. These design limitations were also present in the French study [22], which means that our sample may not be representative, so generalization of our findings is limited. Nevertheless, only 18% of our sample reported a high interest in migraine, only 18% reported having migraine and 50% reported consulting less than 5 migraine patients monthly - facts that argue against the interest bias.…”

“…Maybe reflecting this fact is the observation that most physicians in this sample have quite adequate and realistic perceptions about migraine - the vast majority (96%) considered migraine a disease (in accordance with the French study [22] yet contrasting with an American study [23]), 65% recognize that the majority of patients do not consult for migraine [10,24], 87% recognize the need of a schedule for follow-up visits for migraine patients and report realistic expectations about acute and preventive treatment outcomes. In our sample the low interest in migraine negatively influenced the perception of its disability but not the perception of migraine as a disease.…”

“…Participation in our study was very good (∼70%), especially when compared with the similar French survey [22], but the sample was also biased by its recruitment method, which is a clear limitation of this study. We cannot exclude a participation bias and another limitation was the inability to obtain data about sociodemographic characteristics of the Portuguese practitioners.…”

“…This study was based on a similar study conducted in France [22], by the same sponsor, which however only included neurologists.…”

“…The study design was similar to a previous French study of the same sponsor [22] - participating physicians completed an anonymous questionnaire and returned it anonymously to the study center. The questionnaire included three sections: the first section collected demographic information (age, gender, medical specialty, work area, duration of practice and interest in headaches disorders), the second section had multiple-choice questions about disease impact and severity, patient expectations, satisfaction with treatment options and management issues, and the third section related to self-reported headaches (occurrence of headache during life, in the last year, the previous day and migraine self-diagnosis, age of onset, headache frequency, self-treatment choices and medication overuse).…”