Evaluation of Migraine Surgery Outcomes through Social Networking Sites

Purpose: Social Networking Sites (SNS) have been used to study many aspects of health and human behavior. Although SNS present a unique opportunity to obtain unsolicited patient reported outcomes, their use has been limited in plastic surgery. This work aims to use Facebook, the most popular SNS, to evaluate outcomes of migraine surgery.

Methods: This study evaluated three months of posts and comments from two closed Facebook groups regarding migraine surgery, nerve stimulators, and radiofrequency/cryoablation. Outcomes were classified by degree of resolution of symptoms.

Results: A total of 323 posts related to surgical management.  Of 172 posts commenting on post-op success of nerve surgery, 18.6% reported cure, 59.9% significant improvement, 6.4% partial improvement, 10.5% no change, and 4.7% worse. Thirteen posts referenced nerve stimulator, with 39.8% improvement, 15.4% partial improvement, 7.7% no change, and 46.2% worse. Twenty-five referenced ablation with 52% improvement, 28% no change, and 20% worse. Surgery was recommended by 86.2% of users.

Conclusions: The 78.5 % rate of complete or significant resolution of symptoms in this study is very close to the 78.7%-83.7% shown in large case series and a randomized control trial.^1-3 The fact that unsolicited patient input obtained in this study is similar to the previously published literature adds validity to the data reported in those articles.  Similar to the findings of a recent systematic review, surgery is more efficacious compared to nerve stimulators and ablation.⁴ This study adds to evidence favoring headache surgery by removing evaluator bias, and shows that surgical outcomes and satisfaction data may be obtained from SNS.