Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on migraine management in the United States: insights from migraine tracking app users

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

The nature of COVID-19 pandemic measures has altered the clinical management of migraine, and has also created barriers to evaluate the impact of such measures of migraine patients. Using the Migraine Buddy smartphone application, we assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on migraine in users residing in the United States.

Methods

Migraine Buddy is a smartphone application by individuals to record their migraine headache episodes, characteristics, and coping mechanisms. For this study, anonymized self-reported data from 163,176 adult Migraine Buddy users in the United States between January 2020 and May 2020, were analyzed for migraines associated with stress. A stress-related migraine is defined as one in which stress or anxiety was reported as a trigger or symptom. A questionnaire on the impact of COVID-19 on migraine and its management was also completed by 923 users from the United States in the app between April 2020 and May 2020.

Results

88% of the Migraine Buddy database extract and 84% of the respondents are female, with a mean age of 36.2 years. The proportion of stress-related migraine attacks peaked at 53% on March 21 to 23, although the number of migraine attacks decreased. This followed the declaration of the COVID-19 national emergency on March 13 and a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States. Questionnaire respondents felt that the following added more stress: social isolation (22.6%), information overdose (21.2%), access to essentials (food, medication, etc.) (18.7%), and financial concerns (17.8%). To help manage migraine during COVID-19, respondents suggested stress and diet coaching programs and resources (medical articles, etc.) (34.0%), having the option for home delivery of medication (30.6%) and tele-consulting (25.5%).

Conclusion

Here, we report the change in the proportion of self-reported stress-related migraine in relation to evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as its impact of migraine management. Our data will help increase the understanding of patients’ needs and help with planning and execution of mitigating strategies.

Related collections

Most cited references 15

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time

Ensheng Dong, Hongru Du, Lauren Gardner (2020)

In December, 2019, a local outbreak of pneumonia of initially unknown cause was detected in Wuhan (Hubei, China), and was quickly determined to be caused by a novel coronavirus, 1 namely severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The outbreak has since spread to every province of mainland China as well as 27 other countries and regions, with more than 70 000 confirmed cases as of Feb 17, 2020. 2 In response to this ongoing public health emergency, we developed an online interactive dashboard, hosted by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA, to visualise and track reported cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in real time. The dashboard, first shared publicly on Jan 22, illustrates the location and number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, deaths, and recoveries for all affected countries. It was developed to provide researchers, public health authorities, and the general public with a user-friendly tool to track the outbreak as it unfolds. All data collected and displayed are made freely available, initially through Google Sheets and now through a GitHub repository, along with the feature layers of the dashboard, which are now included in the Esri Living Atlas. The dashboard reports cases at the province level in China; at the city level in the USA, Australia, and Canada; and at the country level otherwise. During Jan 22–31, all data collection and processing were done manually, and updates were typically done twice a day, morning and night (US Eastern Time). As the outbreak evolved, the manual reporting process became unsustainable; therefore, on Feb 1, we adopted a semi-automated living data stream strategy. Our primary data source is DXY, an online platform run by members of the Chinese medical community, which aggregates local media and government reports to provide cumulative totals of COVID-19 cases in near real time at the province level in China and at the country level otherwise. Every 15 min, the cumulative case counts are updated from DXY for all provinces in China and for other affected countries and regions. For countries and regions outside mainland China (including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), we found DXY cumulative case counts to frequently lag behind other sources; we therefore manually update these case numbers throughout the day when new cases are identified. To identify new cases, we monitor various Twitter feeds, online news services, and direct communication sent through the dashboard. Before manually updating the dashboard, we confirm the case numbers with regional and local health departments, including the respective centres for disease control and prevention (CDC) of China, Taiwan, and Europe, the Hong Kong Department of Health, the Macau Government, and WHO, as well as city-level and state-level health authorities. For city-level case reports in the USA, Australia, and Canada, which we began reporting on Feb 1, we rely on the US CDC, the government of Canada, the Australian Government Department of Health, and various state or territory health authorities. All manual updates (for countries and regions outside mainland China) are coordinated by a team at Johns Hopkins University. The case data reported on the dashboard aligns with the daily Chinese CDC 3 and WHO situation reports 2 for within and outside of mainland China, respectively (figure ). Furthermore, the dashboard is particularly effective at capturing the timing of the first reported case of COVID-19 in new countries or regions (appendix). With the exception of Australia, Hong Kong, and Italy, the CSSE at Johns Hopkins University has reported newly infected countries ahead of WHO, with Hong Kong and Italy reported within hours of the corresponding WHO situation report. Figure Comparison of COVID-19 case reporting from different sources Daily cumulative case numbers (starting Jan 22, 2020) reported by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), WHO situation reports, and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese CDC) for within (A) and outside (B) mainland China. Given the popularity and impact of the dashboard to date, we plan to continue hosting and managing the tool throughout the entirety of the COVID-19 outbreak and to build out its capabilities to establish a standing tool to monitor and report on future outbreaks. We believe our efforts are crucial to help inform modelling efforts and control measures during the earliest stages of the outbreak.

0 comments Cited 4666 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Development and Initial Validation of the COVID Stress Scales

Steven Taylor, Caeleigh Landry, Michelle Paluszek … (2020)

Highlights • A large population-representative was surveyed to better understand COVID-19-related psychopathology. • We developed and validated the COVID Stress Scales, comprising 36 items on 5 scales. • The COVID Stress Scales offer promise for identifying people in need of pandemic-related mental health services.

0 comments Cited 450 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Psychological Impact and Associated Factors During the Initial Stage of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Among the General Population in Spain

Rocío Rodríguez-Rey, Helena Garrido-Hernansaiz, Sílvia Collado (2020)

The outbreak of COVID-19 in Spain started at the end of February. By 9th April 2020 Spain was the second country in confirmed cases and in deaths. On March 14, 2020, the Spanish Government declared the state of alarm to limit viral transmission. During such state, citizens must stay confined at home with few justified exceptions. This whole situation drastically changed the life of the population, which can cause a wide range of psychosocial impacts. This study explored the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the general adult population (N = 3055) during the first stages of the outbreak in Spain, as well as their anxiety, stress and depression levels. We also examined the extent to which the following variables were associated to participants’ mental health: (1) demographics; (2) degree of concern about the pandemic; (3) environmental conditions during the home confinement, (4) changes in daily life as a consequence of the pandemic; (5) contact with the COVID-19 disease; (6) actual and perceived severity of the crisis; (7) information about the COVID-19, (8) perceived health status and (9) leisure activities conducted within the last 24 h. Our results show that Spanish consider the current COVID-19 health crisis as fairly severe, and the majority felt that the COVID-19 crisis had greatly impacted on their daily life, including changes in their daily routines and cancelation of important activities. About 36% of the participants reported moderate to severe psychological impact, 25% showed mild to severe levels of anxiety, 41% reported depressive symptoms, and 41% felt stressed. Women, young, and those who that lost their job during the health crisis showed the strongest negative psychological symptoms. What worried Spaniards the most was the likelihood of suffering an economic crisis derived from the pandemic. We found factors associated with better mental health, such as being satisfied with the information received about the health crisis, conducting leisure activities, and the perception of being in good health. These findings can be used to design psychological interventions to help coping with COVID-19 pandemic, both in Spain and other countries.

0 comments Cited 313 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Yuji Kato:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3651-1569

yujik@saitama-med.ac.jp

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Neurol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Neurol

Title: BMC Neurology

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2377

Publication date (Electronic): 9 September 2021

Publication date PMC-release: 9 September 2021

Publication date Collection: 2021

Volume: 21

Electronic Location Identifier: 345

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Neurology, Saitama Neuropsychiatric Institute, 6-11-1 Honmachi-Higashi, Chuo-ku, Saitama, Saitama 338-8577 Japan

[2 ]GRID grid.412377.4, Department of Neurology and Cerebrovascular Medicine, , Saitama Medical University International Medical Center, ; 1397-1 Yamane, Hidaka, Saitama 350-1298 Japan

[3 ]Healint Pte. Ltd, Singapore, Singapore

Author information

Yuji Kato http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3651-1569

Article

Publisher ID: 2378

DOI: 10.1186/s12883-021-02378-3

PMC ID: 8426333

PubMed ID: 33390161

SO-VID: e80b9661-dbf8-4428-929f-8c0c5dac1b2d

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 27 May 2021

Date accepted : 2 September 2021

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurology

Keywords: covid-19,pandemic,migraine,real world,smartphone application

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurology

Keywords: covid-19, pandemic, migraine, real world, smartphone application

Comments

Comment on this article

scite_

Cited by 7

See all cited by

Most referenced authors 379

See all reference authors

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on migraine management in the United States: insights from migraine tracking app users

Read this article at

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Related collections

Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 15

An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time

Development and Initial Validation of the COVID Stress Scales

Psychological Impact and Associated Factors During the Initial Stage of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Among the General Population in Spain

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author information

Article

History

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 210

Cited by 7

Most referenced authors 379