[Factors influencing headache in children]

This descriptive study was conducted to examine the degree of stress, coping styles, communication with the mother and depression between headache-suffering children and headache-free children and to explore predicted factors for headache occurrence in children.

The subjects of this study consisted of 196 headache-free children and 107 headache-suffering children. They were 4th-6th graders of an elementary school in T city. The instruments in this study were David's stressor of children, Lazarus & Folkman's Stress Coping Style, PACI (Parent-Adolescent Communication Inventory) by Barnes & Olsen and Kovac's CDI (Children's depression inventory). Data were collected from May 2 to July 16, 2004.

Total stress (t=-3.76, p=.035), school stress (t=-3.02, p=.001), mass media stress (t=-1.39, p=.029) and depression (t=7.62, p=.001) in headache-suffering children were significantly higher than those of headache-free children. Problem-oriented coping skills (t=1.23, p=.023), and the score of communication with the mother (t=2.32, p=.012) in headache-suffering children were lower than those of headache-free children. Logistic regression analysis (stepwise) showed that the most powerful predictor was stressors in school, followed by depression, stressors in mass media and communication with the mother.

This study revealed that important factors such as the degree of school stress, depression, the degree of mass media stress, communication with the mother and problem-oriented coping skills should be controlled for reducing of headaches in children.