Table 1.
Patient characteristics among headache-related ED visits in the US: 2015 to 2018 NHAMCS data.
| Weighted Visits | All Headaches | Migraine | NOS Headaches | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10.2 Million (100.0%) | 3.4 Million (32.9%) | 6.6 Million (63.9%) | ||
| Characteristics | Weighted % | Weighted % | Weighted % | SMD a |
| Age | 0.32 | |||
| 18–34 | 39.4 | 40.9 | 38.4 | |
| 35–49 | 31.3 | 37.2 | 28.1 | |
| 50–64 | 20.3 | 16.6 | 22.4 | |
| ≥65 | 9.0 | 5.3 | 11.1 | |
| Sex | 0.33 | |||
| Female | 72.9 | 82.0 | 68.0 | |
| Male | 27.1 | 18.0 | 32.0 | |
| Race | 0.41 | |||
| White | 70.3 | 82.2 | 64.7 | |
| Non-White | 29.7 | 17.8 | 35.3 | |
| No. of chronic conditions | 0.08 | |||
| 0 | 46.3 | 49.5 | 43.8 | |
| 1 | 26.3 | 24.6 | 27.0 | |
| ≥2 | 26.1 | 23.7 | 28.3 | |
| Cardiovascular diseases b | 32.2 | 25.5 | 36.0 | 0.16 |
| Depression | 13.5 | 17.5 | 12.1 | 0.16 |
| Pain scale | 0.37 | |||
| None (0) | 5.0 | 3.0 * | 6.1 | |
| Mild (1–3) | 4.9 | 2.7 * | 6.2 | |
| Moderate (4–6) | 13.7 | 9.6 | 15.2 | |
| Severe (7–10) | 53.0 | 65.0 | 47.3 | |
| Payment source | 0.37 | |||
| Commercial | 31.3 | 35.7 | 29.2 | |
| Medicare | 16.3 | 13.7 | 17.2 | |
| Medicaid | 29.5 | 30.6 | 29.4 | |
| Others | 10.2 | 7.5 | 11.1 | |
| No. of medications administered in ED | 0.50 | |||
| 0 | 21.3 | 12.3 | 26.4 | |
| 1 | 10.5 | 5.2 | 13.3 | |
| 2 | 14.8 | 14.9 | 14.2 | |
| ≥3 | 53.5 | 67.6 | 46.1 | |
| No. of medications prescribed at discharge | 0.16 | |||
| 0 | 54.1 | 60.7 | 50.4 | |
| 1 | 21.1 | 17.2 | 22.7 | |
| 2 | 15.3 | 15.4 | 15.6 | |
| ≥3 | 9.5 | 6.6 | 11.3 | |
| Provider type c | ||||
| ED physician | 85.7 | 86.6 | 85.5 | 0.02 |
| Consulting physician | 5.6 | 6.7 | 5.0 | 0.00 |
| ED resident/intern | 9.3 | 9.4 | 9.5 | 0.07 |
| Nurse practitioner | 10.3 | 8.9 | 10.9 | 0.00 |
| Physician assistant | 14.9 | 14.0 | 15.4 | 0.07 |
| Geographic regions | 0.09 | |||
| South | 38.3 | 33.7 | 40.2 | |
| Northeast | 14.4 | 14.5 | 14.3 | |
| Midwest | 24.1 | 27.7 | 22.4 | |
| West | 23.3 | 24.1 | 23.1 | |
| Metropolitan area | 86.2 | 81.2 | 88.5 | 0.23 |
Abbreviations: ED: emergency department; US: United States; NHAMCS: National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey; NOS: not otherwise specified; SMD: standardized mean difference; NCHS: National Center for Health Statistics. a SMD > 0.1 was considered as having a non-negligible difference between migraine-related visits and NOS-headache-related visits. b Cardiovascular diseases include cerebrovascular disease, history of stroke or transient ischemic attack, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, ischemic heart disease, history of myocardial infarction, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. c Provider categories are not mutually exclusive. A patient can be seen by multiple providers during each ED visit. * The number of unweighted visits is fewer than 30 or the relative standard error is greater than 30. Weighted estimates of those values are considered unreliable by NCHS standards.