Research
Stress and psychological factors before a migraine attack: A time-based analysis
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* Corresponding author: Masahiro Hashizume hashi2@med.toho-u.ac.jp
1 Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Toho University, 6-11-1 Omorinishi, Ota-ku, Tokyo, 143-8541, Japan
2 Department of Stress Sciences and Psychosomatic Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, the University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan
BioPsychoSocial Medicine 2008, 2:14 doi:10.1186/1751-0759-2-14
Published: 18 September 2008Abstract
Background
The objective of this study is to examine the stress and mood changes of Japanese subjects over the 1–3 days before a migraine headache.
Methods
The study participants were 16 patients with migraines who consented to participate in this study. Each subject kept a headache diary four times a day for two weeks. They evaluated the number of stressful events, daily hassles, domestic and non-domestic stress, anxiety, depressive tendency and irritability by visual analog scales. The days were classified into migraine days, pre-migraine days, buffer days and control days based on the intensity of the headaches and accompanying symptoms, and a comparative study was conducted for each factor on the migraine days, pre-migraine days and control days.
Results
The stressful event value of pre-migraine days showed no significant difference compared to other days. The daily hassle value of pre-migraine days was the highest and was significantly higher than that of buffer days. In non-domestic stress, values on migraine days were significantly higher than on other days, and there was no significant difference between pre-migraine days and buffer days or between pre-migraine days and control days. There was no significant difference in the values of domestic stress between the categories. In non-domestic stress, values on migraine days were significantly higher than other days, and there was no significant difference between pre-migraine days and buffer days or between pre-migraine days and control days.
There was little difference in sleep quality on migraine and pre-migraine days, but other psychological factors were higher on migraine days than on pre-migraine days.
Conclusion
Psychosocial stress preceding the onset of migraines by several days was suggested to play an important role in the occurrence of migraines. However, stress 2–3 days before a migraine attack was not so high as it has been reported to be in the United States and Europe. There was no significant difference in the values of psychological factors between pre-migraine days and other days.