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Abstract
Background: Alexithymia is a term used to describe a disorder where patients have difficulty in expressing their own feelings in words.
Aims: The analysis of alexithymia in patients suffering from chronic migraine (CM) or episodic migraine (EM) compared to healthy controls.
Methods: Two clinical samples formed by 80 CM patients (21 males and 59 females, mean age: 44.65) and 44 EM patients (8 males and 36 females, mean age: 42.18) were enrolled. A group of 67 healthy subjects served as controls (26 males and 41 females, mean age: 41.21). All subjects were requested to fill in the 20-item version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20).
Results: We found a statistically significant difference between groups in Factor 1 (difficulty in describing feelings), F(2, 191) = 7.96, p < 0.001, and in TAS total, F(2, 191) = 5.37, p = 0.005. Post-hoc analyses revealed that CM patients had higher scores in TAS factor 1 and in TAS total than healthy controls. There were no significant differences between CM and EM patients, even if CM sufferers reported a trend towards higher scores in each TAS factor as well as in TAS total.
Conclusions: Alexithymia emerges as a potential characteristic trait of migraine, regardless of disease severity.
Declaration of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest. The research was carried out at the Headache Science Center of the National Neurological Institute C. Mondino, Pavia (Italy).