Objectives: We examined retrospectively recalled characteristics of pre-injury migraine and their association with retrospectively reported post-concussion outcomes.
Methods: Data for this study was collected based on self-reported recall from a cross-sectional survey design, distributed online via the Prolific platform. Eligible participants (N = 271) completed the Migraine Disability Assessment Test, Rivermead Post-Concussion Symptoms Questionnaire, Quality of Life in Neurological Disorders short-form, and self-reported return to activities. A MANCOVA compared retrospectively reported concussion outcomes between individuals with and without a self-reported pre-injury migraine diagnosis. Partial correlations assessed associations between retrospectively recalled migraine characteristics and post-concussion outcomes.
Results: Compared to those without a self-reported history of migraine (n = 208), individuals with a self-reported pre-injury migraine diagnosis (n = 61) retrospectively reported significantly greater severity of earlier (p = .007) and later (p = .032) cluster post-concussion symptoms, delayed return to work/school (p = .050) and sports (p < .001), and lower quality of life in the stigma (p < .001) subdomain. Retrospectively reported pre-injury migraine-related functional impairment was significantly correlated with recalled severity of earlier (r = .37) and later (r = .31) cluster post-concussion symptoms, return to sports (r = .29), and quality of life in the social role 1 subdomain (r = -.35). Retrospective reports of pre-injury migraine severity were significantly correlated with both earlier (r = .43) and later (r = .34) cluster post-concussion symptom severity, and lower quality of life in the anxiety (r = .45), depression (r = .46), dyscontrol (r = .38), fatigue (r = .32), wellbeing (r = -.32), sleep (r = .35), social role 1 (r = -.48), and cognition 2 (r = -.37) subdomains.
Conclusions: Individuals with a retrospectively reported history of migraine recalled worse concussion outcomes than those without a migraine history. Additionally, more unfavourable recalled pre-injury migraine characteristics were associated with reports of more adverse post-concussion outcomes. These findings highlight the potential value of assessing individuals' experience with pre-injury migraine when evaluating post-concussion challenges, and the need for future research to examine these relationships using longitudinal designs and objective clinical measures.
Copyright: © 2026 Tourigny 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.