Administrative Frequency of Migraine and Clinical Characteristics in a Colombian Cohort From 2018 to 2022

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the frequency of migraine and measure its demographic and clinical characteristics in a Colombian cohort from electronic databases.

METHODS: This non-interventional, retrospective, descriptive study was conducted in one Colombian Health Management Organization (HMO) from 2018 to 2022 with a 5-year follow-up period. Migraine patients were identified using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th version code G43, and the diagnosis was confirmed by a neurologist. The first recorded migraine diagnosis was defined as the index date. Medical records, claim databases and other electronic databases from the HMO were used to determine the clinical characteristics, treatments, and health care services. Administrative prevalence and incidence were estimated based on the number of cases and new cases each year from the consultation register in the database over the total number of insured patients in the HMO.

RESULTS: A total of 89,227 patients were included in the study. Most of them were women (84.9%). The mean age of migraine diagnoses was 37.0 (Standard deviation 14.1). Administrative prevalence of migraine started 1.7 (in 2018) and ended at 2.2 (in 2022) cases per 100 persons, showing an inverse U-shaped pattern, with the highest prevalence in 2020 (2.42, 95% Confidence interval (CI) 2.41 – 2.44 cases per 100 person). Administrative incidence presented a downward trend between 2019 and 2021 ranging between 0.9 and 0.032 cases per 100 patients, with a slight change in 2022, where it rose to 0.1. Incidence and prevalence were generally higher in the female and young adult age groups. Hypertension (21.3%), arrythmia (4.1%) and structural heart disease (3.4%) were the most common cardiovascular comorbidities, more frequent in male than female.

CONCLUSIONS: The administrative prevalence and incidence of migraine were lower compared to other studies, indicating that many migraine patients are untreated by the HMO. The prevalence demonstrated an inverse U-shaped-pattern over the study's follow-up period.