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

Abstract

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 wellbeing.