Highlights
- •Careful investigation of psychiatric symptoms in migraine patients would prevent neglection of the psychological symptoms that accompany the disease and disrupt the treatment.
- •The present study aimed to investigate the attitudes and behavior of migraine patients about receiving psychological help and their concerns about stigmatization.
- •In this group of patients, there is a need for further studies on the reasons for the high number of applications for the treatment of psychiatric symptoms.
Abstract
Objective
Although migraine patients experience more psychological problems when compared to
the general population, they are usually not treated. The reasons for non-treatment
of these problems are not clear. The anxiety and concern of migraine patients about
stigmatization may also prevent them to express psychological symptoms. The present
study aimed to investigate the attitudes and behavior of migraine patients about receiving
psychological help and their concerns about stigmatization.
Material and method
The study group included 50 18–49 years old patients diagnosed with migraine in the
neurology clinic and the control group included 50 healthy individuals with similar
age, gender socio demographic characteristics with the study group. Attitude Scale
Towards Seeking Professional Help (ASPH-SF), Self-Stigma in Seeking Professional Help
Scale (SSPHS), Intentions to Seek Psychological Help Scale (ISHP), Stigma Scale for
Receiving Psychological Help (SSRPH) and Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R) were applied
to all participants.
Findings
The comparison of the patient and control groups based on SCL-90-R findings demonstrated
that the patient group scores in somatization, anxiety (p = 0.000), depression (p = 0.003),
anger (p = 0.02), interpersonal sensitivity (p = 0.006), phobia (p = 0.001), paranoid
thoughts (p = 0.012), psychosis (p = 0.031) subscales and additional subscale (p = 0.014)
and general symptom index (p = 0.001) scores were higher. Based on SCL 90, it was
found that patients with higher levels of symptoms had higher social stigma scores
when compared to patients with lower symptom levels (p = 0.007). Migraine patients
with high symptom levels were found to have significantly lower rates of seeking psychiatric
help (14% vs 33%) when compared to the control group. There was no difference between
the patient and control groups based on ASPH-SF, SSPHS, ISPH and SSRPH scale scores.
Conclusion
Although migraine patients exhibit higher levels of psychiatric symptoms when compared
to healthy individuals, it was determined that only a minority of these patients receive
psychiatric treatment. Especially patients with high level of psychiatric symptoms
could have sought less psychiatric help due to the concerns of stigmatization.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 21, 2018
Accepted:
November 11,
2018
Received:
October 2,
2018
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
