OBJECTIVES: Migraine is a chronic sometimes highly disabling neurological disease that manifests itself with recurrent episodes of headache. It is expected that migraine is associated with a significant interference with individual’s daily activities and, as a consequence, deterioration of health-related-quality-of-life. The objective of this study was to estimate the burden-of-illness (BOI) of migraine in Spain, and to characterize the excess burden in migraineurs compared with non-migraineurs.

METHODS: The nationwide representative cross-sectional Spanish-National-Health-Survey (SNHS) was the source to abstract data of persons 15+ years; 1,442 migraineurs (77.3% women, 52.5 years) and 4,288 non-migraineurs (76.7% women; 52.8 years) obtained by propensity score optimal matching. BOI was estimated in terms of number of disability-adjusted life years (DALY) lost, computed after applying an annual discount rate of 3% over individual life-expectancy while participating in the survey. Relative percentage of life expectancy lost was also computed. Disutility values (1-utility value) were obtained from the Spanish version of EQ-5D-5L questionnaire completed by participant in the SNHS. Univariate general linear models with robust standard error estimation for differences were applied.

RESULTS: Migraineurs showed an adjusted mean (95% CI) DALY loss of 1.87 (1.76-1.99) years, that represented on average a loss of 8.87% (33.8-37.4) as a percentage of life expectancy. Compared with non-migraineurs, migraine accounted by an excess of 0.96 (0.86-1.06) DALY lost or an additional relative to life expectancy loss of 3.43% (2.72-4.14), p<0.001. Projecting these figures to the number of prevalent migraineurs in Spain, migraine is responsible of an adjusted excess of 3.3 million DALY loss; 2.4 in women and 0.9 in men.

CONCLUSIONS: In Spain, from a nationwide society perspective, migraine was associated with a meaningful burden of illness in comparison to non-migraineurs. It is expected that migraineurs loss a significant portion of their life-expectancy years due to disability attributable to migraine.