Quality of life of multiple sclerosis patients with comorbid migraine

Veronica Villani1, L Prosperini, C Pozzilli

  • 1Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, Headache Centre, S. Andrea Hospital, Sapienza University, Via di Grottarossa, 1035-00189 Rome, Italy. veronicavillani@hotmail.it

The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of comorbid migraine on quality of life (QoL) of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Forty-four MS patients with comorbid migraine and 44 sex/age-matched MS subjects free from primary headache were evaluated. Although we observed that comorbid migraine did not affect the physical and mental composite scores of the MS QoL-54 questionnaire, MS patients with migraine had worse scores than those without in role limitation due to physical problems (RL-P) (p = 0.035), bodily pain (BP) (p = 0.030) and health perception (HP) (p = 0.023) subscales. These findings were confirmed by multivariate regression analyses adjusted for demographic, clinical and psychometric variables. Significant correlations between MIDAS score and RL-P (r = -0.43, p = 0.003), BP (r = -0.51; p < 0.001), and HP (r = -0.38; p = 0.01) were also found. In conclusion, we suggest that investigating and treating migraine in MS patients might contribute to improve their QoL.