Personality and emotional disorder in a community sample of migraine headache sufferers

To investigate whether individuals who suffer from chronic, severe headaches have more personality abnormalities or emotional disorders than their healthy counterparts, 162 young adults with classical migraine, ascertained by community survey, were compared to matched control subjects without migraine. On the General Health Questionnaire, the prevalence of psychological symptoms among the migraine subjects was 2.5 times the prevalence among the control subjects. The migraine sufferers also had significantly higher scores on the psychoticism (women only), neuroticism, and lie scales of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Frequency of migraine attacks was not related to scores on any of the scales. These results suggest that classical migraine is associated with psychological abnormalities.