Headache and behavioral medicine: a 50-year retrospective

This article reviews all behaviorally oriented articles published in Headache from 1961(1:1) through the first 3 issues of 2008 and provides an analysis of trends in categories of articles by decade. A mean of 21.6% of all articles included significant attention to behavioral variables; this percentage was relatively stable from 1980 through 2008. The top 5 categories, accounting for 64% of all behavioral articles since the inception of Headache, were: behavioral treatment (19.2%), psychiatric comorbidity (14.0%), psychophysiology (11.2%), behavioral risk factors (9.8%), and psychobiological concepts (9.8%). There is an accelerating trend toward publication of articles related to psychiatric comorbidity, behavioral risk factors, and functional performance/disability.