Association Between Migraine and Gastrointestinal Disease in Pediatric Patients: A Propensity Score Weighting Approach

PURPOSE: Migraine is a neurological disorder affecting pediatric patients of all age groups, with a prevalence ranging from approximately 5% to 15%. It significantly impacts the quality of life in children and adolescents, potentially hampering their learning abilities, school performance, and daily activities. This study investigated the association between migraine and several prevalent gastrointestinal (GI) diseases in pediatric patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We analyzed the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service Pediatric Patient Sample (HIRA-PPS) dataset from South Korea. Propensity scores based on patient characteristics (age, sex, and insurance type) were employed through the inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) in binary logistic regression. We included gastroesophageal disease (GERD), peptic ulcer disease (PUD), gastritis, dyspepsia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as GI diseases. RESULTS: A total of 683,347 patients from the HIRA dataset were included in the study. After IPTW adjustment, the prevalence of GI diseases among pediatric patients with migraine remained significantly increased (OR 4.15; 95% CI 4.12–4.18). Migraine patients showed higher prevalence rates for all six individual GI diseases, with GERD (OR 4.11; 95% CI 4.05–4.16) and IBS (OR 3.79; 95% CI 3.74–3.84) showing the highest associations. We also confirmed a progressively increasing association between the presence of diagnosed migraine and GI diseases. CONCLUSION: This study highlights a strong association between pediatric migraine and GI diseases, even after adjusting for patient characteristics. The elevated prevalence of various GI diseases in migraine patients suggests the need for comprehensive approaches to their prevention and treatment.