94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Headache and Neurogenic Pain
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1572541
Effectiveness of a Headache Awareness Campaign on Behavioral Change
Provisionally accepted- 1Department of Neurosurgery, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan
- 2Department of Neurosurgery, Kariya Toyota General Hospital, Kariya Toyota General Hospital, Kariya, Aichi, Japan
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Headache is a significant public health issue due to its high prevalence, associated disability, and socioeconomic burden. In Japan, awareness of migraine prevention and the risks of medication overuse remains limited. This study examined whether increasing knowledge about headaches through an online educational campaign could lead to behavioral changes, such as more frequent visits to headache clinics and reduced misuse of headache medications.An online educational program on headaches was conducted for 1,829 hospital staff members, who first completed a questionnaire before watching an educational video. Six months later, they completed a second questionnaire to assess behavioral changes. The initial survey revealed that although headaches interfered with work and daily life for approximately 50% of participants, only 20% regularly sought medical care. The most common reason for not visiting a medical facility was reliance on over-the-counter medications.In the follow-up survey, 20% of participants had independently gathered information about headaches, 6% had visited a medical institution for a new headache, and 40% had reduced their use of painkillers after becoming aware of medication overuse headache (MOH). A decision tree model, using the reduction in painkiller use as the outcome, indicated that correct knowledge about migraine, including preventive treatments, and active information-seeking behavior were key factors in promoting behavioral change. These findings suggest that providing online headache education to hospital staff may contribute to improved headache management by increasing awareness of migraine prevention and MOH while reducing excessive painkiller use.
Keywords: Headache, Migraine, Medication Overuse Headache, behavioral change, headache awareness campaign, Decision tree model
Received: 07 Feb 2025; Accepted: 11 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Muraoka, Asai, Suzuki, Nishizawa and Saito. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shinsuke Muraoka, Department of Neurosurgery, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.