An empirical assessment of the migraine personality type

The notion of a specific, measurable migraine personality type was empirically tested through the administration of the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI) on 125 (103 female and 22 male) migraine subjects drawn from a biofeedback treatment/research project. A significant different (p less than 0.01) was identified between this group and the test norms on a simultaneous comparison of all 15 JPI variables (Hotelling T2 test). This difference was isolated along five variables (lower scores on the measures of Complexity, Risk Taking, and Social Participation and higher scores on the Responsibility and Value Orthodoxy scales). A post hoc profile analysis comparison of the female and male subjects revealed only a trend toward significance on one test, thereby supporting the assumption of no sex differences. While these findings are in line with some of the migraine personality literature support for many characteristics was not found (i.e. for the trait of anxiety).