Evaluation of Relationship Between Childhood Maltreatment and Medication Overuse Headache.

INTRODUCTION

We aimed to evaluate the prevalence and relationship between childhood maltreatment (CMT) among patients with medication overuse headache (MOH) and to investigate whether CMT is associated with medication overuse in patients having headaches or with headaches that become chronic. Epidemiological studies report a relationship between childhood abuse and headache. There is growing knowledge about the evidence that childhood maltreatment leads to neurobiological sequel. Medication overuse is the most important problem for migraine to become chronic. But in the literature, there was no information about the role of childhood abuse in MOH and for migraine to become chronic.

METHODS

A total of 116 patients with headache, aged from 15 to 65 years, were included in the study. Patients having chronic migraine (CM), MOH and episodic migraine (EM) were selected out of patients presented to the headache outpatient clinic. Types of headache were determined according to the revised International Headache Society (IHS) criteria published in 2004. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory and Beck Anxiety Inventory were performed. Presence of psychiatric co-morbidities was evaluated by a clinician using Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the Fourth Edition.

RESULTS

A total of 116 patients with headache were included in the study. Of patients, 64 had MOH, 25 had CM and 27 had EM. The prevalence of CMT, particularly emotional neglect (62%), physical neglect (44%) and emotional abuse (36.2%), was determined higher in all headache groups. There was no statistically significant difference in prevalence of childhood maltreatment between MOH, CM and EM groups. No statistically significant difference was detected between educational status, psychiatric co-morbidities and childhood trauma, except for physical neglect.

CONCLUSION

Childhood maltreatment was observed in MOH as in other forms of migraine and headache. However, no significant difference was observed between the three groups of patients with headache.