Psychiatric comorbidities decrease quality of life in chronic migraine patients

Background: Chronic migraine is a common, debilitating condition affecting quality of life and social functioning with significant impact. Migraine is highly comorbid with anxiety and mood disorders, but little is known about psychiatric comorbidities impact in the migraine patient quality of life.

Methods: Fifty patients with chronic migraine diagnosed according to the International Headache Society (2004) were interviewed and met diagnostic criteria for mental disorders, according to the structured interview SCID-I/P and were evaluated by the SF-36 Health Survey questionnaire. Patients were divided in the following groups: chronic migraine with both mood and anxiety disorders, with only anxiety disorders, with generalized anxiety disorder, with only a mood disorder, and without psychopathology. The scores in the group without psychopathology were compared with the other groups. All eight domains of the SF-36 scale were compared in those groups.

Results: Significantly lower (p<0.05) quality of life was found on all eight SF-36 domains for CM psychiatric comorbidity patients compared to no-co morbidity patients. On the SF-36 General Health domain alone, quality of life was not significantly lower for all four CM psychiatric comorbidity groups. On the SF-36 Physical Aspects domain alone, quality of life was not significantly lower only for the Anxiety Disorders group.

Conclusions: Chronic migraine comorbidity with mental disorder is a significant factor affecting patients' quality of life.