Evaluating the relationship between the 4-item migraine interictal burden scale and other patient-reported outcome measures: a

Background: People with migraine report reduced health-related quality of life during ictal and interictal phases. However, most patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) focus on impact during migraine episodes (ictal) or globally (both ictal and interictal), potentially neglecting interictal burden. This exploratory analysis evaluated correlations between the 4-item Migraine Interictal Burden Scale (MIBS-4) total score and other PROMs in people with migraine. Methods: A Results: A total of 462 participants were included (mean age: 45.8 years); 85.9% were female, 58.2% had episodic migraine and 41.8% had chronic migraine. At baseline, highest correlations with MIBS-4 were observed for Migraine Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MSQ)-total score, MSQ-Emotional Function (MSQ-EF), and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) score, which measures depressive symptoms (all Conclusion: Interictal burden, as assessed by MIBS-4, was moderately correlated with PROMs like MSQ, PHQ-9, and MIDAS, but moderate-negligible to low correlation was observed with monthly migraine headache days. These results indicate that interictal burden is a unique construct that is correlated with, but not fully captured by, other measures and should be considered when managing people with migraine. Clinical trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03559257.