Abstract
Background and Aims:
Migraine is the sixth most frequent disease globally and is the second leading cause of years lived with disabilities globally disease worldwide. The options for treatment were limited, until recently. The options and methods are increasing in numbers and ways. The goal of this research is to assess the awareness and perception of the Saudi population toward treatment options for migraine other than prescribed medications.
Methods:
The study is an analytical cross-sectional. We targeted the Saudi population. The data was collected starting from Jan till the end of Feb 2022. The survey was optional and distributed online. A total of 1380 responses were collected. We used R studio (v.4.1.2) to summarize, visualize, and statistically analyze the data. The p-value of Fisher’s exact test and Pearson’s chi-squared test were used to assess the statistical differences for qualitative data.
Results:
More than one-half (54.3%) of the participants used pain killers for migraine treatment; however, those who used specific drugs such as Sumatriptan, Eletriptan, or Ergotamine accounted for only 41.9%. Most respondents (n = 702, 55%) chose “avoiding noise and bright light” as non-pharmacological measure to relieve migraine. On the other hand, only 93 (7.3%) participants from the sample group knew that surgery is an available option for treating migraine, making it the least chosen option. Almost a third of respondents (31.8%) accepted when they were asked whether they would accept other interventional treatments if diagnosed with migraine. Females were more willing to accept these options (36%), whereas only 23% of males agreed. The awareness of the respondents, the diagnosed respondents, and the non-diagnosed were (n=515, 40%), (n=112, 60%), and (n=403, 37%) respectively. The comparison was statistically significant with P-value <0.001.
Conclusions:
Awareness of the Saudi population about migraine treatment other than medications is generally low. Physicians treating patients with migraine are advised to educate them about the disease and the treatment options to raise awareness. Also, empowering social media with trusted information plays a major role in raising awareness and spreading knowledge as it appeared to be an important source for diagnosed and non-diagnosed in this study results.

Key words: Migraine, Treatment, Interventional, Awareness, Perception.