Personality and Behavioural Characteristics in Pediatric Migraine

SYNOPSIS Personality and behavioural features in pediatric migraine were investigated in a comparison study of 20boys and girls with migraine, matched for age and sex with a “pain” control group of 20 children withmusculoskeletal pain, and with a “no‐pain” control group of 20 children. When the amount of pain experiencedby children was controlled, the only discriminating variable was that of somatic complaints which includedvomiting, nausea, and perceptual disturbances, all migraine‐related phenomena. The inclusion of the “pain” control group in this investigation yielded results which indicated that the behavioural and personality featuresthought to be characteristic of childhood migraine are common to a chronic pain disorder and in fact, themanifestation of many of these features correlate directly with the amount of pain experienced. It is suggestedthat the personality and behavioural characteristics evident in many children with migraine may result from therecurrent chronic pain episodes rather than in some way being causative of the pain.