Sarcouncil Journal of Biomedical Sciences

Abstract: Headache is one of the most common somatic complaints in children and adolescents. The prevalence is estimated to be 10–20% in the school-age population. Until puberty, it hasn’t been seen gender differences (with a slight male predominance), at a later stage it has been noted an increase among females with a ratio of 2.5:1, except that lasts into adulthood. Prevalence of migraine in the pediatric population ranges from 3,3% to 21,4% and it increases from childhood to adolescence. In children and adolescents, headache and migraine are commonly associated with various diseases, such as psychiatric and neurological comorbidity, in particular depression and anxiety, epilepsy, sleep disorders, ADHD. We collected 11 cases of adolescents (14-17 years) all referring to our adult Centre for Headache from January 2019 to October 2020, 9 girls (81%) and 2 boys (19%), ranging from 14 to 17 years. 7/11 (63%) were diagnosed for migraine, 4/11 (33%) for tension-type headache. 4/11 (33%) complained of more than 4 episodes/months. Three patients (2 girls and a boy) were diagnosed with panic attack disorder, 1/11 with major depression disorders, 1/11 with borderline personality disorder (in all of them psychiatric treatment and psychotherapy were promptly started). A 14 years- old young girl received diagnosis of medication overuse headache. In conclusion we performed a small study whose data seem to be coherent with those previously reported in literature. We remark the importance of considering possible neuropsychiatric comorbidities associated with headache in order to assure best treatment of both.