Children's Headache Through Drawings: A Narrative Review and a Portrait Gallery

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Neurology
• Child Psychology
• Medical Diagnostics

Background:

• Headaches are common and disabling in children, impacting well-being and academics.
• Current diagnostic criteria (ICHD-3) face challenges with children's limited verbal expression.
• Children's immature narrative skills complicate headache diagnosis and phenotype definition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore drawing as a diagnostic tool for pediatric headaches.
• To correlate graphic representations with clinical headache phenotypes in children.
• To promote the integration of drawing into routine pediatric headache diagnosis.

Main Methods:

• Narrative review of literature on drawing in pediatric headache diagnosis.
• Analysis of curated drawings to identify correlations between graphic features and clinical symptoms.
• Comparison of drawing-based insights with traditional clinical assessments.

Main Results:

• Drawing provides unique insights into children's psychological and emotional states.
• Drawings can yield detailed, accurate, and clinically actionable information, comparable to verbal reports.
• Graphic differences in drawings correlate with various headache types and symptoms.

Conclusions:

• Drawing is a valuable, low-cost diagnostic aid for pediatric headaches, especially for non-verbal children.
• Integrating drawing enhances diagnostic precision and supports a child-centered care model.
• This method offers a visual reference for clinicians to interpret children's headache experiences.