Emotion dysregulation in migraine patients: can it be a hallmark the probability of the transformation from episodİc to chronic?

Objective: The main aim of this study was to examine patients with migraine in terms of emotional dysregulation and to evaluate whether the emotion dysregulation is effective on chronicity in migraine.

Materials And Methods: A total of 85 migraine patients and 61 healthy participants were included in this study. All participants were evaluated using Migraine Disability Scale (MIDAS), Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), and the Discomfort Intolerance Scale (DIS). Then, all results were compared between the migraine patients and healthy individuals. In addition, the migraine patients were separated into three groups as patients without an aura, patients with an aura and patients with chronic migraine and then their results were compared among them. Finally, the predictive markers of chronic migraine were explored using regression analyses.

Results: Among 85 migraine patients, the mean age was 31.5 (SD = 7.98); 83.5% were women. The total and subscale scores of DERS, PCS, DIS, and DASS-21 were significantly higher in patients than in healthy individuals ( < 0.01). Subscale scores of DERS, DIS, and DASS-21 in the chronic migraine patients were found to be higher than in the other two patient groups ( < 0.01). Logistic regression analysis showed that chronic migraine could be associated with 'lack of emotional clarity' (OR = 1.229;  = 0.042), 'lack of awareness' (OR = 1.187;  = 0.032), 'migraine associated disability' (OR = 1.128;  = 0.033), and 'stress' (OR = 1.292;  = 0.027).

Conclusion: This study results showed that chronic migraine could be associated with the emotional dysregulation. To our knowledge, this study is the preliminary study in the literature and, therefore, new studies with large samples are needed.