Comparison of Psychological Difficulties in Patients with Migraine and Epilepsy Using PARADISE-24 Questionnaire.

Mirmosayyeb, Omid; Shaygannejad, Vahid; Ghajarzadeh, Mahsa

Background Patients with migraine or epilepsy suffer from a wide range of psychological difficulties, and various instruments are needed to separately assess each difficulty. However, the PARADISE-24 questionnaire is a comprehensive questionnaire for evaluating different psychological difficulties in cases with neurological disorders. Objective The aim of this study was to compare psychological difficulties in patients with migraine and those with epilepsy by using the PARADISE-24 questionnaire. Methods Overall, 240 migraineurs and 210 patients with epilepsy were enrolled. All the participants were asked to fill the Persian version of the PARADISE-24 questionnaire. Results In migraineurs, the mean age and mean headache severity (by means of visual analogue scale, VAS) were 38.6±11.6 and 6.8±2.8, respectively. In patients with epilepsy, the mean age and mean duration of the disease were 33.6±13.4 and 12±10.3 years, respectively. The mean PARADISE score was significantly higher in migraineurs than in epileptic cases (57.9±12 vs 50.7±15.1) (p<0.001). Conclusion Patients with migraine suffer more from psychological difficulties than epileptic cases. This finding could help physicians to pay more attention to psychological well-being.