Trait levels of anxiety and psychological responses to stress in migraineurs and normal controls.

Compared migraine headache suffers and matched normal controls on the Zung Depression Inventory, Eysenck Personality Inventory, Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory, Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Health Locus of Control. In addition Ss viewed a film of a subincision ceremony and completed a post-film questionnaire. Migraineurs scored significantly higher than the controls on the TMAS, STAI and EPI Lie scale and rated the subincision film as significantly less unpleasant than did the controls. These results confirm earlier reports that migraineurs have higher levels of trait anxiety than normals and support the traditional description of migraineurs as inhibiting the expression of their feelings.