Anger level and expression style of anger in migraine patients

Abstract

In this study we aimed to compare anger, styles of anger expression and positive and negative affect levels between migraine and control groups. Patients diagnosed to have migraine with aura (n=16) and migraine without aura (n=31) according to the 2004 criteria of International Headache Society and volunteers as control group (n=30) were enrolled in the study. State Trait Anger Scale and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule were performed on the participants. Subscale scores of the tests were compared between the migraine and control groups. In migraine group trait-anger and anger-in scores were significantly higher and anger-out scores were lower than those of the control group. There were no significant differences between the two groups with respect to anger-control subscale scores. Traitanger, anger-in, anger-out and anger-control scores were not significantly different between the subgroups of migraine with aura and without aura. In the assessment of affection levels both positive and negative affection scores did not differ between the migraine and control groups. Positive and negative affection levels did not differ between the migraine subgroups. Our data show that migraine patients have high levels of anger, the increased anger is suppressed and can not easily be expressed.