Psychopathology in individuals with post‐traumatic headaches and other pain types
Abstract
In this study, the psychological functioning of patients with chronic post‐traumatic headache (PTH), chronic combination headache and chronic low back pain without headache, whose time of onset was similar, and a matched group of controls was investigated. The Symptom Checklist 90‐Revised (SCL‐90‐R), State‐Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI), State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory, Form Y (STAI‐Y), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were used to assess the degree of psychopathology. A MANOVA test indicated highly significant differences between groups. In general, the pain groups fell along a continuum with PTH subjects demonstrating the highest elevations, back pain subjects demonstrating the next highest elevations, and combination subjects demonstrating fewer elevations. A cluster analysis indicated that findings were best classified into four clusters, but no one pain diagnosis predominated in any cluster. Eighty‐nine percent of controls were assigned to clusters 1 or 2, which revealed essentially normal scores on all tests. It is suggested that while chronic pain patients demonstrate more psychopathology than non‐pain controls, a variety of coping styles exists within each pain group independent of diagnostic categorization. Copyright © 1994, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved
Publication Title
Cephalalgia
Recommended Citation
Ham, L., Andrasik, F., Packard, R., & Bundrick, C. (1994). Psychopathology in individuals with post‐traumatic headaches and other pain types. Cephalalgia, 14 (2), 118-126. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1468-2982.1994.1402118.x
