1043-3155 Pediatr Neurol Briefs pedneurbriefs Pediatr Neurol Briefs Pediatric Neurology Briefs Pediatr Neurol Briefs 2166-6482 1043-3155 2166-3155 Pediatric Neurology Briefs Publishers Chicago, IL, USA PNB-2-93-a 10.15844/pedneurbriefs-2-12-7 Headache Neurology Pediatrics Nervous System Diseases Child Development Brain Diseases Neurosurgery Child Infant Psychological Factors in Adolescent Headache http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0173-7931 Millichap J. Gordon MD 1 2 * Division of Neurology, Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL Departments of Pediatrics and Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL Correspondence: Dr. J. Gordon Millichap, E-mail: jgmillichap@northwestern.edu 12 1988 01 08 2016 2 12 93 93 Copyright: © 1988 The Author(s) 1988 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The rôle of psychological, health-behaviour and medical factors in adolescent headache

Seventy high school students between 16 and 18 years of age reporting a headache frequency of once a week or more were compared with a headache-free control group and were studied by questionnaires for psychosocial, health-behavior, and medical problems at the Dept of Child and Youth Psychiatry, University Hospital of Uppsala, Sweden.

 Adolescent Headache Migraine Headaches Nervous Problems

Seventy high school students between 16 and 18 years of age reporting a headache frequency of once a week or more were compared with a headache-free control group and were studied by questionnaires for psychosocial, health-behavior, and medical problems at the Dept of Child and Youth Psychiatry, University Hospital of Uppsala, Sweden. Adolescents with recurrent tension and migraine headaches reported significantly more somatic symptoms and psychological distress than controls, they were more often absent from school, and used the school health service more than controls. Their parents were more often divorced and suffered more frequently from headache and abdominal pain. Nervous problems, anxiety, depression, homework time, somatic symptoms and absence from school were psychosocial predictors of headache susceptibility. [1]

COMMENT. These results differ from a previous study of anxiety in childhood migraine. Patients with migraine and their parents who completed standardized anxiety, personality, and life-event scales showed no significant difference from controls. All patients had anxiety scores within normal. Patient selection and the omission of tension headache sufferers could explain the difference in findings.

 Larsson B The rôle of psychological, health-behaviour and medical factors in adolescent headache Dev Med Child Neurol 1988 Oct 30 5 616 25 10.1111/j.1469-8749.1988.tb04799.x 3229559