Comparison of Pain-Related and Psychological Variables between Acute and Chronic Migraine Patients, and Factors Affecting Headache Chronicity.
Farhad Emadi, Farkhondeh Sharif, Maryam Shaygan and 3 others
PMID 31341918WHAT IT FOUND
Among 170 chronic and 80 acute migraine patients, chronic migraine was linked with longer headache duration, severe disability, depression and anger, while pain intensity was similar.
Key findings
01Chronic migraine patients had longer headache duration, more severe disability, depression and anger, and lower emotional intelligence than acute migraine patients, while pain intensity was similar.
02Headache chronicity was associated with sex, marital status, education, headache duration, disability, depression and anger, but not age, occupation, pain severity or emotional intelligence.
03Chronic migraine was most common among women, married individuals, those with high school education or lower, and unemployed participants.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study used convenient sampling from clinics affiliated with one university, so the patients may not represent people with migraine elsewhere. It was cross-sectional, so it cannot show whether any factor caused acute migraine to become chronic. All variables were self-reported, and current pain or distress may have influenced answers about disability, depression, anger and emotional intelligence. People with known psychiatric disorders, secondary headaches, chronic pain or chronic diseases were excluded, so the findings may not apply to those patients.
Declared interests
No funding or conflicts of interest were reported in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these variables as causes of chronic migraine. This was a cross-sectional study with convenient sampling, so it can only show that the factors were more common in chronic migraine patients at the same time.