Psychiatry Research EG

This study was conducted on 40 migraine patients and a 40 healthy control group : aiming to study the psychiatric aspects of migraine. Both groups were subjected to : A/ Clinical neuropsychiatric examination ; B/ Psychometric testing using Bender Gestalt (BG) ; Trail Making ™ and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) tests. RESULTS : (A) The Clinical evaluation showed that : 1. Emotional stress, menses, exhaustion and hunger were the commonest precipitating factors for migraine attacks. 2. The obsessive, independent and alert were the commonest personality traits of patients. 3. The commonest psychiatric symptoms were depression, irritability, retarded thinking and anxiety. 4. Significant relationship was found between severity of migraine and depression and irritability ; depression being more significant in migraine, with typical aura familial hemiplegic migraine. (B) Psychometric studies showed : 1. The score of patients were significantly lower in patients than the control group with regard to BG and TM. 2. Patients showed higher neuroticism and lower extroversism than the control group on EPQ. From this study we can confirm the importance of psychiatric examination for migraine patients. Also, the result of this study showed that stresses are the main cause for precipitation of an attack. So future studies on the biochemical relation between migraine and stress will help in more understanding of the mechanism of this disorder.