Impact of Headache Frequency and Sleep during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Migraine Patients.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread worldwide and poses greatly threat to global health. COVID-19 also has an unneglected effect on migraine patients. Migraine attack frequency as one of migraine characteristics, its impact during COVID-19 deserves further research. We aimed to evaluate whether migraine attack frequency during COVID-19 pandemic differed from pre-COVID-19, and explore their possible influencing factors during the pandemic. METHOD: This prospective cohort study enrolled 187 migraine patients who came from the Department of Neurology of West China Hospital from October 2019 to December 2019. After inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 157 patients were included. We collected demographic data, clinical characteristics and epidemiological contact information and followed up on March 2020. Then Paired-Samples T test, logistic regression and interaction tests were used to analyze data. RESULT: We found that value of migraine attack frequency was 2.47 ± 1.12 before and 3.54 ± 1.79 during COVID-19 (P<0.0001). Then we divided patients into two group based on the difference of migraine attack frequency between COVID-19 period and pre-COVID-19 and employed logistic regression analysis. In the logistic regression analysis, divorced status (OR=6.53, P=0.0453), good sleep pre-COVID-19 and poor sleep during COVID-19 (OR=3.11, P=0.0432) had independent effect on migraine attack frequency during COVID-19 pandemic. And we found no interaction in the poor sleep during COVID-19 between various subgroups. CONCLUSION: Migraineurs may suffer from more frequent migraine attack during COVID-19 pandemic. Pay more attention to marital status and assessment of sleep status may contribute to adjusting suitable treatment strategies of migraine patients during pandemic.