Dr Faraidoon Haghdoost Discusses Next Steps for COVID-19, Migraine Research

The pandemic's effects on migraine need to be evaluated for the whole of 2020 and data from one specific time are not enough, said Faraidoon Haghdoost, MD, a general practitioner and PhD student at The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia.

Transcript:

The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®): To your knowledge, was this the first study investigating the effects of a pandemic on migraine triggers and frequency?

Dr. Haghdoost: I did a literature review and there is a study on frequency of headache. And it was done by Delussi and a group in Italy. The study was done on March 27, to April 18. They showed that there was a decrease in headache frequency compared to before the pandemic. But I checked another study on stress, but it was not done on migraine patients. It was on a general population. It was in Switzerland on 10,000 people. They found that in about 25% of the individuals, stress decreased during the pandemic. I had a talk with some of the colleagues there, I just know them. I asked them some questions and they said we were interested in this finding, 25% had less stress compared to before, but about 50% had more stress in Switzerland, in the 10,000 participants. They found some reasons like change at work, problems with childcare, and not being able to spend more time [with others] as the reason for increasing their stress. So maybe you will have to check these factors in our patients, in Migraine Buddy users. If we are gonna have a sample, for example, and send them questionnaires; ask these questions and check if there is any reason for decreasing or increasing their stress as a trigger.

AJMC®: How do you think research into this subject will evolve as the pandemic continues in the months or years ahead?

Dr. Haghdoost: I think maybe we have lots of research at the moment, so we have to wait for the results. But the real effects of the pandemic, I think, and the disease should be checked for the whole of 2020. I don't know if we are going to have any vaccine or any ending for this pandemic. But just one specific time is not enough. We need a pattern for the whole year, especially for 2020, for most of the countries that were influenced. In some countries, they had lots of peaks. I know in Iran they experienced 2 or maybe 3 peaks. We need to check it but what I'm thinking that must be done and people who are diagnosed by neurologists as a migraine patient, have to have proper results and checks, be able to check the results and say, okay, this is something among migraine patients.