ASSESSMENT OF ANXIETY, DEPRESSIVE DISORDERS AND PAIN INTENSITY IN MIGRAINE AND TENSION HEADACHE PATIENTS

Introduction: Headache is one of the most common chronic disease affecting around 152 millions of people in Europe, with a man: woman ratio of 1:3. Recent studies show that headache causes significant limitations in daily life with effects on emotional-behavioural and relational aspects. In particular the migraine headache, whose onset is often at a young age, that is the phase of maximum working, social and familiar activity. The aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between migraine-related disability and the presence of anxiety and depression in order to assess how the disability affects the patient activities. Materials and methods: We enrolled 123 migraine patients. All information related to headache was collected by means of interviews, examination of medical records, psychometric tests for measuring anxiety, depression and disability scale. Demographic and clinical characteristics, such as gender, age, education, pain intensity, and frequency of headache were also collected. Results: There was a significant difference in Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety and Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scores between patients who declared to suffer from headache until 10 days per trimester, and patients who declared more than 10 days (p<0.05 in both cases). Logistic regression analysis identified gender, age and migraine frequency as feasible risk factors; the migraine intensity was not significant (p = 0.96), as well as the diagnostic category (p = 0.3). Especially moderate headache frequency and female gender were the highest risk factors for a co-morbidity of anxiety and depressive disorders and pain intensity. Conclusion: Migraine condition may involve the onset of a severe disability. Indeed, independently from the diagnostic category, an high degree of disability is often related to the presence of anxious and depressive symptoms.