Patient-focused migraine management: establishing needs

Headache disorders represent a serious threat to the sufferer's quality of life and normal day-to-day functioning. Headache generates a substantial disability burden, being classified among the major public health disorders. There is no doubt that the emergence of the triptan class in the early 1990s dramatically advanced the treatment of migraine and has changed the perspective of the migraine sufferer with respect to the treatment. Triptan therapies for migraine relief have been proven to be safe and efficacious in clinical trials. Nevertheless, endpoint-based clinical trials are focused more on specific measures of efficacy and tolerability (e.g., relief, response and adverse event rates), and less on the patient's feelings and quality of life. For instance, in the U.S. only 29% of migraine sufferers are very satisfied with their usual treatment. The principal reasons for their dissatisfaction with therapy are as follows: pain relief takes too long (87%), treatment does not relieve all the pain (87%), treatment does not always work (85%), headache comes back (71%), and too many side effects (35%). Thus, this work is focused on patients' perspectives on migraine therapies attempting to establish their needs and to find better treatment possibilities for restoring patients' overall functionality.