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Significantly Higher Odds of Anxiety, Depressive Disorders in Children With Migraine
Children and teens with migraine are at higher risk of experiencing anxiety and depression symptoms and disorders compared with healthy controls, according to results from a systematic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics.
“It may be beneficial to routinely screen children and adolescents with migraine for anxiety and depression in clinical practice,” advised first study author Katherine Falla, MD, and colleagues from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.
Related: Anxiety Disorders Associated With Worse Cognitive Function
The systematic review, which aimed to provide high-level evidence to support the clinical presumption of increased risk of internalizing symptoms in the patient population, included 80 studies. Among them, 74 reported on links between internalizing symptoms and disorders and migraine in patients 18 years or younger and 51 were amenable to pooling.
According to findings from the meta-analysis, standard mean differences between children and adolescents with migraine and healthy controls were 1.13 for anxiety symptoms and 0.67 for depressive symptoms. Odds ratios were 1.93 for anxiety disorders and 2.01 for depressive disorders in pediatric patients with migraine compared with healthy controls. No evidence of publication bias was found.
Due to significant heterogeneity in 20 studies investigating the association between internalizing symptoms/disorders and migraine outcomes or incident migraine, however, researchers could draw few conclusions on the issues.
“It is unclear whether having anxiety and depressive symptoms or disorders has an effect on migraine outcomes or incidence,” they wrote.
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