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3628 Delays in migraine diagnosis and treatment: an Australian hospital headache clinic experience

bmjno · 2025-10-23 · canonical JSON source

12 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Background Limited local data regarding migraine diagnosis and treatment in the Australian population are available.Methods Data was collected from patients attending the St Vincent’s Hospital Headache Clinic from February 2024 to November 2024 and entered into a Headache Database on REDCAP. Patients fulfilling International Classification of Headache Disorders 3 (ICHD-3) diagnostic criteria for migraine were included in the study. Patients were asked the earliest age they could recall having migraine symptoms, when they first received a diagnosis of migraine from a clinician and what preventative treatments they had trialled for migraine. Statistical analysis with Mann-Whitney U test for numerical data and Fisher’s Exact test for binomial data was then performed on XLStat.Results One hundred patients were identified as fulfilling ICHD-3 criteria for migraine within our database. In total 80% were women (80/100) and 20% were men (20/100). The median age of migraine symptom onset was 18 years old, men had an older median age to first symptom onset compared to women (25yo vs 17yo, p=0.032). The median delay between migraine symptom onset and formal diagnosis of migraine was 6 years, the difference between men and women was not statistically significant (5 years vs 6 years, p=0.986). 39% (39/100) of patients had not trialled a preventative prior to clinic review, including 27% (20/73) of patients with over 8 migraine days a month.Conclusion There are significant delays between symptom onset and formal diagnosis in patients with migraine as well as delays in prescribing preventative treatment.