Abstract

Background
Medication-overuse headache (MOH) has been defined newly by the Classification Committee of the International Headache Society in 2003. We hypothesized that MOH has different clinical and psychologic features from any other chronic headaches and control group. The authors investigated the clinical and psychologic features of MOH sufferers diagnosed by newly defined criteria.
Methods
Using our MOH protocol and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), we investigated the clinical and psychologic features of 25 patients with MOH, 23 patients with chronic headaches, and 21 control subjects.
Results
The mean age of MOH patients was 50 years and female was predominantly affected. The locations, characteristics, severity, and common accompanying symptoms of MOH were various. All patients took analgesics. The mean frequency of medication was 21 days per month and duration of medication was about 8.5 years. MOH patients and chronic headache patients had higher MMPI profiles than control group in F (Infrequency), Hs (Hypochondriasis), D (Depression), Hy (Hysteria), Pd (Psychopathic Deviate), Pa (Paranoia), Pt (Psychasthenia), Sc (Schizophrenia) scales. But there was no significant difference of MMPI profiles between MOH patients and another chronic headache patients.
Conclusions
The clinical features of MOH in this study were similar to previous studies. The psychologic features of MOH were not different from those of chronic headache. MOH sufferers may be recommended individual psychologic supports as chronic headache sufferers. Korean Journal of Headache 6(2):129-136, 2005