Clinical and psychological characteristics of migraine patients

Abstract

Introduction. Understanding the clinical and psychological characteristics of migraine patients is essential for developing effective multidisciplinary treatment that includes psychological methods. The personality characteristics of migraine patients continue to be studied and discussed. The study of individual-psychological characteristics of personality in patients with migraine of different frequency is topical.Aim. To assess clinical and psychological characteristics in patients with varying frequency of migraine.Materials and Methods. Sixty migraine patients, mean age 32.92 ± 6.23 years, were included in the study. Depending on the frequency of migraine, all study participants were allocated to 1 of 3 groups: Group 1 – patients with rare episodic migraine; Group 2 – patients with frequent episodic migraine; Group 3 – patients with chronic migraine. All patients were interviewed and tested.Results and discussion. There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of the mean values of neuroticism, psychoticism, extraversion or introversion. Most patients in each group were moderately neurotic and all others were highly neurotic; most patients were ambivalent, i.e., shared both introvert and extrovert personality traits, with the rest being either pure extrovert or pure introvert. None of the patients were psychotic (prone to inappropriate emotional reactions). In each group, patients with a normal temperament type and melancholic spectrum temperaments predominated.Conclusion. Depressive and anxiety disorders are more common in chronic and frequent episodic migraine than in rare episodic migraine. Neuroticism, psychoticism and extraversion/introversion were found regardless of the frequency of migraine attacks.