Personality Traits in Childhood and Adolescent Headache

Abstract

We evaluate personality traits, anxiety and depression in a population of paediatric and adolescent patients, correlating personality characteristics with headache and sociodemographic variables. The clinical features of headache include specific personality traits. We report a clinical study of 57 patients (age 8-18 years), divided up as follows: 12 migraine with aura, 29 migraine without aura and 16 tension-type headache. One of Cattel's tests was administered to every patient; the Children's Depression Inventory test was administered to 53 patients and the Test Anxiety Inventory test to 43 subjects. The scores obtained by every patient in each test were correlated with the characteristics of headache and with sociodemographic data. We found that patients affected by idiopathic headache share some personality traits, mainly emotional rigidity and tendency to repress anger and aggression. These traits do not seem to be correlated with sociodemographic data and the duration of headache: we considered these as characteristic of migrainous patients.

Anger, Depression and Personality Dimensions in Patients with Migraine without Aura

“…This result supports the tendency to repress and introject anger, which is consistent with the hypotheses about the role of psychosomatic mechanisms in migraine patients [16,17,18] and with the literature describing the dynamics of obsessive control typical of some of these patients [65, 66]. Since no differences emerged for the other STAXI scales, the patients’ main characteristic seems the skill in monitoring, preventing and removing anger; though this mechanism does not seem specific of migraine patients but it may also be shared by patients suffering from other types of cephalalgia [12].…”

Personality Traits in Migraine and Tension-Type Headaches: A Five-Factor Model Study

“…For example, in two studies, only 2 [17] and 12 [18] patients suffering from MA were included, and the results were less conclusive. Moreover, in the personality research world, the five-factor model has proven to be the most reproducible trait measure [19] which can offer a common scale to evaluate psychopathology.…”

Present and previous psychopathology of juvenile onset migraine: a pilot investigation by Child Behavior Checklist

“…From the time of Wolff's early portrait of the childhood personality characteristics of migraine patients, the research began to explore the association of headache first with broad personality traits and then with distinct psychiatric symptoms [7,8]. Maratos and Wilkinson underlined that an "emotional upset" is the most frequently reported (86%) precipitating factor [9].…”