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

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.