Childhood adversities experienced by working-age migraine patients.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this work was to study associations between childhood adversities and migraine.


METHODS
This is a case-control study of individuals drawn from the Finnish Population Register comprising four age groups: 20-24, 30-34, 40-44, and 50-54 years. Altogether, 21,101 individuals responded to postal questionnaire (response rate=40%). The subjects were asked whether a doctor had told them that they have or have had migraine. They were then requested (through six questions) to think about their childhood adversities. One randomly selected age-matched and sex-matched control for comparison was selected for every patient (n=4046).


RESULTS
Among migraine patients, 76.8% were women. Each of the six childhood adversities was more common among migraine patients than among controls. In conditional logistic regression analysis for matched-pairs data, long-lasting financial difficulties in the family, a family member having been seriously or chronically ill, serious conflicts in the family, and parents having divorced remained statistically significant after adjusting for education, state of health, and depression. Odds ratios varied between 1.22 and 1.29.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that social factors during childhood are associated with migraine.
Sumanen
Markku
M
University of Tampere, Medical School, Tampere, Finland. markku.sumanen@kolumbus.fi <markku.sumanen@kolumbus.fi>
Rantala
Anna
A
Sillanmäki
Lauri H
LH
Mattila
Kari J
KJ
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires