Stress in migraine: personality-dependent vulnerability, life events, and gender are of significance

Abstract

Background and aim. The individual's experiences of stress as well as constitutional factors, including high neuroticism and female gender, are known determinants for migraine. The present aim was to further elucidate factors of personality and stress, including life events, in relation to gender in migraine.

Methods. A cross-sectional study was performed on 150 persons, 106 women and 44 men, suffering from at least two migraine attacks a month. All obtained a doctor-defined migraine diagnosis based on a structured face-to-face interview concerning their health situation and current and prior stress. All of them also answered validated questionnaires regarding personality traits (SSP), life events, and perceived ongoing stress.

Results. The personality trait inventory showed high mean scores for stress susceptibility and low mean scores for aggressiveness and adventure seeking, both for women and for men, as well as high mean scores for psychic and somatic anxiety in women. Stress susceptibility, the overall most deviant trait, correlated strikingly with current level of stress in both sexes. In women, stress susceptibility also correlated strongly with experiences of negative life events. Tension-type headache, anxiety, and depression were approximately twice as prevalent in women compared to men.

Conclusions. The present study confirms previous research, showing that stress is an important factor in migraine. Stress susceptibility, life events, and concomitant psychosomatic illnesses should be considered important when evaluating individuals with migraine, and gender aspects need to be taken into account.

Key words::

• Gender
• life event
• migraine
• personality
• stress

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr Ina Marteinsdottir for generously providing normative data on life events and skillful statistical assistance from Hans Arinell BSc, Uppsala University and from Lars-Olof Nordesjö MD PhD, formerly of Uppsala University. We are grateful for financial support from Nursing Research, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Uppsala University and from Erik, Karin and Gösta-Selander's Foundation.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content of and writing the paper.