The British Journal of Psychiatry (2009) 194: 350-354. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.108.054049
© 2009 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Migraine in recurrent depression: case–control study

Zainab Samaan, MBChB, MRCPsych, MSc

Medical Research Council (MRC) Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK, and Department of Behavioural Neurosciences, Mood Disorders Program, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Anne Farmer, MBChB, FRCPsych, MD, MRC

Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK

Nick Craddock, MBChB, MRCPsych, PhD

Department of Psychological Medicine, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, UK

Lisa Jones, PhD

Division of Neuroscience, University of Birmingham, UK

Ania Korszun, MD, MRCPsych, PhD

Barts and The London, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK

Mike Owen, MB, PhD, FRCPsych, FMedSci

Department of Psychological Medicine, Cardiff University, UK

Peter McGuffin, MB, PhD, FRCP, FRCPsych, FMedSci, MRC

Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK

Correspondence: Dr Zainab Samaan, McMaster University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, Mood Disorders Program, Centre for Mountain Health Services, St Joseph’s Healthcare, Room D107-B, 100 West 5th Street, Box 585, Hamilton, Ontario L8N 3K7, Canada. Email: samaanz{at}mcmaster.ca

Declaration of interest

M.O. and N.C. have acted as consultants to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and have received honoraria for academic talks from Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca and GSK. A.K. has received research grants from GSK and Sanofi-Synthelabo and has received honoraria from Eli Lilly. A.F. has received honoraria for presentations and chairing meetings from Eli Lilly, GSK and Wyeth, and has acted as a consultant for GSK. P.M. has received honoraria from Eli Lilly and GSK, and has acted as a consultant in the recent past for GSK and AstraZeneca.

Funding

The study was funded by the Medical Research Council.

Background

An association between depression and headache is well established, but the specificity to migraine is unclear.

Aims

To investigate the specificity of the association of depression and migraine.

Method

People with recurrent depression (n=1259) were compared with psychiatrically healthy controls (n=851) to investigate headache defined according to International Headache Society criteria in each group.

Results

All headache types were more prevalent in the case group than in the controls. However, the strongest association was between depression and migraine with aura (OR=5.6). Among participants with recurrent headaches, migraine with aura (but not other forms of headache) was highly significantly associated with depression.

Conclusions

The data suggest that not only is there a general relationship between headache and depression but also that among people with recurrent headache there is a specific association between depression and migraine with aura. The association is likely to be explained by overlapping aetiological risk factors.


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