Psychiatric and sleep abnormalities in school-age children with migraine

Abstract Background Migraine is a primary headache that commonly starts in childhood and adolescent’s periods with great negative impacts on the educational and psychosocial performances of its sufferers. The objectives of this work were to study the existence and types of sleep and psychiatric abnormalities in school-age children with migraine (SCM). Methods The study was conducted on 40 SCM and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects (HCS) submitted to history taking, neurological examination, Pediatric Migraine Disability Assessment (PedMIDAS) questionnaire, Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), Epworth Sleepiness Scale for Children and Adolescents (ESS-CHAD), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and one-night polysomnography (PSG). Results The study showed a high incidence of psychiatric and sleep abnormalities in SCM. The most common psychiatric disorders were anxious depressed symptoms, withdrawal depressed symptoms, social problem, somatic complaints, and attention problems. At the same time, SCM experienced decreased sleep quality, excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), and PSG abnormalities in the form of decreased total sleep time (TST) and sleep efficiency (SE) in addition to increased sleep latency, wake after sleep onset (WASO), arousal index (AI), and REM sleep without atonia index. Conclusion Sleep and psychiatric abnormalities are common underdiagnosed pediatric migraine comorbidities greatly reducing headache control and school performance in this very important period of psychosocial development