[Verbal and drawing expression of primary headaches in developmental age]

Children and adolescents are the subject, which suffers from primary headaches. Type and character of the pain is known only by them and their relations are necessary to know it. This study was performed to establish how children and adolescents express verbally and by paintings their headaches.

The group of 52 patients with primary headaches and normal IQ was analysed. It was 35 girls and 17 boys, aged 6-17 years. Due to IHS International Classification, 20 of them suffered from migraine, and 32 from tension headaches. All patients were asked by physician to illustrate their headache verbally and by painting. Description should involve details about pain character, its localisation, severity, time of duration, frequency and time of appearance, and also accompaning symptoms. Instruction was to use 1/2 -1 page and to colour paintings.

Only 11/52 children illustrated headaches by painting. Red colour dominated on these illustrations. 20% of children only described pain using verbal expression as normal for their age level. Other children used very short elaboration, from laconic to full pain characteristic.

Patients in developmental age more often used verbal than drawing expression of their headaches. Migraine and tension headaches drawing was significantly different. Also verbal expression of migraine was different in localisation and symptoms during pain and accompanied pain. It is necessary to investigate headaches in a subjective and quantitative way.