Do Chronic Headache, Low Education, and Somatic Symptoms Predict Depression?

Depression and somatic symptoms are more likely to coexist in patients with chronic versus episodic headache, suggesting that these symptoms may have a common underlying neurochemical etiology.

These researchers sought to determine the association between chronic headache (CH), somatic symptoms, and depression. They enrolled 1032 women with primary headache disorder at six headache centers. Each participant completed three validated questionnaires on a personal digital assistant (PDA): the Headache Impact Test (HIT-6), to measure headache symptoms; the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), to measure depression symptoms; and the Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15), to measure somatic symptoms.

The vast majority of study subjects had migraine, which was almost equally distributed between chronic and episodic type. Overall, about one third of patients had somatic symptoms, and about one fifth had major depressive disorder (MDD).…

Reviewing Author

Autumn Klein, MD, PhD

Do Chronic Headache, Low Education, and Somatic Symptoms Predict Depression?

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Reviewing Author