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Psychological and Behavioral Issues in the Management of Migraine in Children and Adolescents

  • Psychological and Behavioral Aspects of Headache and Pain (D Buse, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Pain and Headache Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

It is sometimes assumed that children and adolescents with migraine have a psychiatric or behavioral comorbidity, a belief that can be stigmatizing. This review will examine the recent literature addressing this area to determine if pediatric and adolescent migraineurs are at increased risk for psychiatric comorbidity and to discuss management strategies.

Recent Findings

A large systematic review of pediatric and adolescent studies concluded anxiety and depression were not associated with onset of recurrent headaches. Children with increasing migraine frequency have reduced school attendance. Pediatric migraineurs have mildly lower quality of life (QOL) scores than healthy peers but not abnormally low. Finally, children with higher migraine frequency as well as migraineurs with aura were more likely to report suicidal ideation.

Summary

Migraine is a primary neurologic disorder. Migraine and psychiatric disorders may be comorbid; however, at this time, it can be difficult to clearly delineate some migraine features from psychiatric diagnoses with the current screening tools available. The majority of pediatric migraineurs do not have behavioral comorbidities; however, when such comorbidities occur, they should be addressed and appropriately managed. We need more accurate ways of delineating psychiatric and behavioral comorbidities from the migraine phenotype.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCSF Department of Neurology, Mission Hall Box 0137, 550 16th Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA, 94158, USA

    William Qubty & Amy A. Gelfand

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  1. William Qubty
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  2. Amy A. Gelfand
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Correspondence to William Qubty.

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Conflict of Interest

William Qubty declares no conflict of interest.

Amy A. Gelfand declares grant support from NIH/NCATS (8KL2TR000143-09), the Migraine Research Foundation, eNeura, Allergan, and the UCSF Center for Translational Science Institute. She has received personal compensation for legal consulting and consulting fees from Eli Lilly. She has also received personal fees from Zosano and travel expenses paid by Teva. Her spouse has consulted for Medimmune and has received support from Quest diagnostics as well as personal compensation for medical-legal consulting.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Psychological and Behavioral Aspects of Headache and Pain

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Qubty, W., Gelfand, A.A. Psychological and Behavioral Issues in the Management of Migraine in Children and Adolescents. Curr Pain Headache Rep 20, 69 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-016-0597-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-016-0597-1

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