Abstract
Introduction:
Osmophobia is an isolated phobia that is especially common in patients with primary headaches. Osmophobia is recommended for inclusion in the migraine diagnostic criteria because it increases sensitivity and shows absolute specificity. Although there are publications supporting the frequency of osmophobia in patients with tension-type headache (TTH), the association between TTH and osmophobia has not been definitively demonstrated, and various studies have been conducted on this subject. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence and clinical characteristics of osmophobia in a cohort of migraine and TTH patients selected from two different centers.
Methods:
For the current analysis, patients who presented to the neurology outpatient clinic and were diagnosed with migraine or TTH according to the International Classification of Headache Disorders III were selected. A total of 214 patients (129 with migraine and 85 with TTH) were included in the study. Patients’ characteristics, medical visual analog scale (VAS) pain scores and migraine disability assessment (MIDAS) scores wererecorded. Osmophobia characteristics in Migraine and TTH patients were compared along with clinical parameters between the groups and within the groups.
Results:
Sixty-eight percentof the migraine patientshad osmophobia. The most common type of smell that migraine patients experienced was the scent of perfume. A total of31.3% of the patients with TTH had osmophobia. While the most irritating odorant in migraine patients was perfume, in TTH patients, it was the smell of food. There wereno significant differences between osmophobia and age, education level, disease duration, pain frequency, attack duration, or VAS score in both migraine patients and TTH patients. There was no significant difference between migraine patients with and without osmophobia in termsof the MIDAS score.
Discussion:
Our study indicates that osmophobia mostly supports migraine as a differential diagnosis in clinical practice. However, osmophobia can be described to a considerable extent in patients with TTH, and it would be useful to use supporting criteria for differential diagnosis and to question the characteristics of osmophobia more deeply.