Using a Chatbot to Study Medication Overuse Among Patients Suffering From Headaches

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization, half the adult population around the world suffers from headaches. Even though this condition remains in most cases innocuous, it can have a major impact on the patient's quality of life but also on public health expenditure. Moreover, most patients manage their headaches on their own, without consulting a doctor. Therefore, self-medication can eventually lead to drug overuse, and consequently the emergence of a secondary disease called medication-overuse headache (MOH). The detection and follow-up of these unconventional patients represent a major challenge. Some of the latest technology advancements seem to be tailored and fitting for this context. The goal of this study is to investigate medication overuse in French patients suffering from headaches using the chatbot Vik Migraine. Data collection and analysis were assembled from answers to a questionnaire of 28 questions divided into three parts: socio-demographic profile, drug consumption, and medical follow-up. The study showed that medication overuse was often linked to increased headache frequency. Prescription drugs like triptans and opioids, were the most overused drugs among the cohort. This suggests that healthcare professionals could play a critical role in targeting these drugs in prevention of overuse.

Modeling the Conversation with Digital Health Assistants in Adherence Apps: Some Considerations on the Similarities and Differences with Familiar Medical Encounters

“…The World Health Organization encouraged using mHealth to achieve universal healthcare access, overcoming persistent infrastructural and health service delivery challenges [ 9 ]. Examples include distance education platforms [ 10 ], voice assistants for patients with poor dexterity [ 11 ], and chatbots to monitor medication overuse [ 12 ]. Mobile health applications can perform the monitoring tasks defined in advance by the physician and benefit from the accessibility, timeliness, and ubiquity of the mobile phone infrastructure [ 13 ].…”