CHICAGO, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — New data presented
today at The 2010 European Headache and Migraine Trust
International Congress (EHMTIC) shows that persons with chronic
migraine (headache on greater than or equal to 15 days per month)
are much more likely to have annual household incomes below $30,000
than those with episodic migraine (headache on < 15 days per
month). This difference in household income may be
attributable to the greater adverse headache impact in the chronic
migraine group. Chronic migraine, a condition characterized
by headaches more days than not, afflicts about 1 in 50 Americans.
This research is from the American Migraine Prevalence and
Prevention Study (AMPP), the largest-ever longitudinal study of
headache.
The study involved 373 individuals with chronic migraine and
6,554 with episodic migraine. Those with chronic migraine were more
likely to have average annual household incomes below $30,000 than
those with episodic migraine (38.3% of chronic migraineurs and
26.5% of episodic migraineurs had household incomes of less than
$30,000/year). The Headache Impact Test (HIT-6) measures the
burden of headache in areas including work, school, social life,
and feelings such as fatigue, irritability and difficulty with
concentration over the previous month. Those with chronic
migraine had an average score of 64 (indicating “severe impact”)
and those with episodic migraine had an average score of 58
(indicating “substantial impact”).
Study co-investigator, Dawn C. Buse, PhD, Assistant
Professor of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
and Director of Behavioral Medicine at the Montefiore Headache
Center, Bronx, NY, said, “These results reinforce the fact
that the impact of headache is most significant among persons with
chronic migraine when compared to persons with episodic migraine.
In addition, we find that headache impact is predicted by
headache pain
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