Life Events and Headache

Abstract

We have evaluated the incidence and the gravity of recent and early stressful life events in 149 patients with headache and in 43 healthy controls. The incidence of early stressful events was the same for the headache patients and the controls, and for the three subtypes of headache patients. Patients with headache had undergone more recent stressful events than the control individuals, and the difference was due to patients with migraine. The mean gravity of the recent stressful events did not differ significantly. This probably indicates that appearance of headache is not so much associated with the gravity of the events as with the fact that they have occurred in the lives of patients with other biological and/or psychological characteristics with which the stress interacts.