Quality of life in adolescents with migraine

Objective: Migraine is a common chronic health problem. There is little information in the literature for quality of life (QoL) of adolescents diagnosed with migraine despite the high prevalence of this disorder. The aim of this study is to measure the QoL of adolescents between the ages of 13-18 who have been diagnosed with migraine and compare those results with the healty control group. Methods: The study was conducted on 30 adolescents between ages of 13-18 with migraine diagnosis and the same number of healthy control group participants. International Classification of Headache Disorders-II (ICHD-II) criteria and the clinical impression were used for the migraine diagnosis. The first author clinically examined the cases of the migraine diagnosis by using the DSM-IV criteria and the patients who have comorbid psychiatric diagnosis were excluded. In the evaluation of QoL, Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) groups formed by age groups of 13 to 18 years were used. PedsQL is a modular instrument for measuring physical and psychosocial QoL in children and adolescents aged 2 to 18 independent of the disease. The adolescents and parents who fulfilled the requirements to participate this study were asked to fill out the PedsQL form. Results: The effect of migraine diagnosis on PedsQL points were analyzed and it was determined that all points and sub points of the adolescents with migraine on PedsQL scale were statistically lower than the points of the control group. PedsQL points and subpoints of the parents of the migraine patients were also statistically lower than the PedsQL points of the parents of the control group. Conclusion: The result of our study shows that migraine type headache is an important health problem, which decreases the QoL of adolescents in all areas of functioning when compared with healthy control groups. Research on QoL of migraine patients will increase the awareness on this issue and this will contribute to the quality of the migraine treatment. (Anatolian Journal of Psychiatry 2009; 10: 137-141)