Perception of typical migraine images on the internet: Comparison between a metropolis and a smaller rural city in Germany.

The medial portrayal of migraine is often stereotypical and inaccurate but reflects how society perceives migraine. The discrepancy between others' views and the reality of affected individuals may negatively affect access to treatment and the disease course of patients with migraine. This study aimed to investigate whether images presented in the media as typical migraine attacks are perceived as realistic and representative by migraine patients in Rostock, a smaller town in rural Germany, and compare the results to those from Berlin, a large metropolis. We performed an online survey in Rostock. Migraine patients were shown ten images of migraine attacks, which were among the most downloaded stock pictures on the internet under the search term "migraine". They rated on a scale of 0-100 to what extent the pictures were realistic for migraine attacks (realism score), representative of their own migraine (representation score), or the society's view of migraine (society score). In addition, we compared our results with a recently published study from the metropolitan region of Berlin. A total of 174 migraine patients completed our survey. Mean (SD) realism, representation, and society scores were 59.9 (17.5), 56.7 (18.3), and 58.4 (17.1) respectively. Images of older patients were perceived as significantly more realistic and representative than those of younger patients (P < .001). Patients in Rostock (rural region) rated the images as significantly more realistic and representative than survey participants in Berlin (metropolis). Migraine patients in a rural region found typical migraine images only moderately realistic and representative but to a higher degree than their counterparts from a metropolis.
Competing Interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: TH has nothing to disclose. JBH has nothing to disclose. KSL reports personal fees from Teva. LHO has nothing to disclose. PT has nothing to disclose. FR received honoraria for consulting and lectures from Allergan/Abbvie, Novartis, Teva, Lilly, Ipsen, Lundbeck, Hormosan. He has received royalties from Elsevier. TPJ has served on advisory boards and has received honoraria for lectures from Allergan, Abbvie, Grünenthal, Lilly, Lundbeck, Hormosan, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, TEVA. He has received royalties from Elsevier. His research is supported by Grants from the Innovationsfonds/Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss and the European Union (EFRE). PK received honoraria for consulting and lectures from Allergan, Lilly, Lundbeck, Novartis, and Takeda. UR received honoraria for consulting and lectures from Amgen, Allergan, Abbvie, Eli Lilly, Lundbeck, Novartis, electroCore, Medscape, StreaMedUp, and Teva. UR received research funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and Novartis. BR received honoraria for consulting and lectures from Abbvie/Allergan, Lilly, Novartis, and Teva as well as research funding from the German Research Foundation, the German Migraine and Headache Society and Novartis. All financial and non-financial support was received outside of the submitted work. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
(Copyright: © 2023 Hamann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)