Personality factors in chronic headache: evaluation with SCL-90R

The psychopathological approach is fundamental in the study of chronic headache because it integrates the diagnosis of a pathology in which the symptom (headache) is the disease itself hiding in itself the deep message to decode. The Symptom Check List 90R(SCL-90R) is a scale of general evaluation of current psychopathology which can be self-administered by the patient. The scales of SCL-90R are correlated with those of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Moreover the former test has the advantage of being shorter and more pratical so it was chosen to be used in this study on chronic headache. The results showed that the psychopathological profile of chronic headache patient is rather impaired in all the dimensions and indices measured by the test. No difference was found in the occurrence of psychopathological symptoms either between analgesic abusers and nonabusers, or among the three subtypes of chronic headache.