Citation

Wang QR, Lu YY, Su YJ, Qin H, Zhang L, Wu MK, Zhang CL, Wu CH. BMJ Open 2019; 9(7): e027251.

Affiliation

Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/bmjopen-2018-027251

PMID

31366644

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Traumatic brain injury is now a major contributor to the global healthcare burden. Migraine is another debilitating disease with a global health impact. While most researchers agree that traumatic brain injury is a risk factor for migraine, whether migraine is a risk factor for traumatic brain injury still remains under debate. We therefore aimed to investigate whether migraine was a risk factor for developing traumatic brain injury. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective population-based cohort study. SETTING: Data for people who had been diagnosed with migraine were retrieved from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database. PARTICIPANTS: We identified 7267 patients with newly diagnosed migraine during 1996-2010. The migraineurs to non-migraineurs ratio was set at 1:4 to enhance the power of statistical tests. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: We used multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression models to assess the effects of migraines on the risk of traumatic brain injury after adjusting for potential confounders.

RESULTS: The overall traumatic brain injury risk was 1.78 times greater in the migraine group compared with the non-migraine group after controlling for covariates. Additionally, patients with previous diagnoses of alcohol-attributed disease, mental disorders and diabetes mellitus had a significantly higher traumatic brain injury risk compared with those with no history of these diagnoses.

CONCLUSIONS: This study of a population-based database indicated that migraine is a traumatic brain injury risk factor. Greater attention to migraine-targeted treatment modalities may reduce traumatic brain injury-related morbidity and mortality.

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

Language: en

Keywords

Taiwan health programmes; migraine; traumatic brain injury