Medicina (Dec 2022)

Results of a Web-Based Survey on 2105 Greek Migraine Patients—Second Part: Efficacy of Acute and Prophylactic Migraine Treatments and Corresponding Patients’ Reported Satisfaction

  • Emmanouil V. Dermitzakis,
  • Aikaterini Kouroudi,
  • Andreas A. Argyriou,
  • Konstantinos C. Spingos,
  • Konstantinos Bilias,
  • Michail Vikelis

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina59010031
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 59, no. 1
p. 31

Abstract

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Background and Objectives: The Greek Society of Migraine and Headache Patients conducted, in 2020, its second online survey, titled “Migraine in Greece—2020”, after publication of the first similar online survey conducted in 2018. To compare the current findings with the corresponding data obtained in 2018, we herein release the second part of results obtained from the 2020 survey on the efficacy of preventive and symptomatic anti-migraine medications and the patients’ reported satisfaction with these treatments. Materials and Methods: We surveyed 2105 migraine patients from all over Greece with the use of a 151-questions specific migraine-focused questionnaire in Greek language, which was distributed through the online research software “SurveyMonkey”. Results: Triptans were mostly used with efficacy for the symptomatic relief of migraine attacks. About 2 of 3 surveyed patients had received various prophylactic oral medications and the majority of them discontinued these prophylactic medications as a result of inefficacy/safety issues. BoNTA was reported to be effective only when administration was commenced by a trained neurologist/headache specialist, while our current findings are generally comparable to those obtained in our 2018 pre-COVID-19 survey and the pandemic has not imposed any significant attitudes on migraine therapies and corresponding patients’ satisfaction. Conclusion: Although a market change is anticipated with the evolving widespread use of anti-CGRPs monoclonal antibodies or gepants in the symptomatic and prophylactic treatment of migraine, it is of great interest to review published results of larger longitudinal population-based studies to further ascertain the satisfaction of patients to migraine therapies.

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