(ANSA) - ROME, MARCH 28 - Migraine in young people can be accompanied by various forms of emotional distress, a study published in the journal Jama Pediatrics shows that children and adolescents who suffer from migraine are more at risk of anxiety and depression.
The research - a systematic review of hundreds of studies on migraine in very young children - was carried out by Serena Orr of the Departments of Pediatrics and ClinicalNeurosciences at the University of Calgary, Canada.
About 10% of children and adolescents suffer from migraines, underlined Serena Orr in an interview with ANSA.
The expert considered a sample of 2,121 young patients with migraine, comparing them with 2,271 peers with other types of headache and with 15,288 control individuals who did not suffer from headaches.
Well it has emerged that in the presence of migraine the probability of suffering from anxiety and depressive disorders is doubled for children and adolescents compared to peers who do not suffer from headaches.
"Based on these results - underlines the expert - we recommend that all children and adolescents with migraine should also be monitored for anxiety disorders and depression. However, it will be necessary to investigate whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between anxiety and depression and migraine" and what comes first, in short, whether it is the headache that causes anxiety and depression or vice versa.
"We also need to investigate - he concludes - whether children and adolescents with migraine and simultaneously with anxiety and depressive disorders have a different course of their headaches in the years to come".
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