Defining migraine days, based on longitudinal E-diary data
Cephalalgia, vol. 43, pp. 033310242311666
Abstract
BACKGROUND: There is a need for standardization of the definition of a migraine day for clinical and research purposes. METHODS: We prospectively compared different definitions of a migraine day with E-diary data of n = 1494 patients with migraine. We used a baseline definition based on migraine characteristics with a duration of ≥4 hours OR triptan intake (independently from its effect) OR (visual) aura lasting 5-60 minutes. RESULTS: Of all migraine days defined by triptan intake only, 66.2% had a duration <4 hours. Adjusting the headache duration criterion to ≥30 minutes led to a decrease in days defined by triptan intake only and resulted in a 5.4% increase in total migraine days (equals 0.45 migraine day increase in monthly migraine days). These additional migraine days had a median duration of 2.5 hours. CONCLUSION: We propose to define a migraine day as follows: 1) (a) headache duration ≥30 minutes; (b) matching ≥2 of four characteristics: unilateral, pulsating, moderate to severe pain, aggravation by or causing avoidance of routine physical activity; and (c) during headache ≥1 of the following: nausea and/or vomiting, photophobia and phonophobia or 2) (visual) aura duration 5-60 minutes or 3) a day with headache for which acute migraine-specific medication is used irrespective of its effect.
Authors 6
-
Leiden University Medical Center
Affiliation as printed
Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
-
Leiden University Medical Center
Affiliation as printed
Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
-
Affiliation as printed
Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
-
Marnick Q. T. P. van der Arend Aachen Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)
Leiden University Medical Center
Affiliation as printed
Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
-
Leiden University Medical Center
Affiliation as printed
Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
-
Gisela Marie Terwindt corresponding Aachen Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)
Leiden University Medical Center
Affiliation as printed
Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
Cited by 20 stored of 20
20 results
No patents citing this paper on Lens.org (checked 2026-10-11).