SUPPLEMENT TO

Adolescent Children Are Affected
by Their Parents’ Migraines

Children of parents with migraine miss family and social activities and may not receive needed help.

SAN DIEGO—Adolescents and young adults miss out on family outings, become distracted at school, and are otherwise substantially impacted by their parents’ migraine, according to the results of a cross-sectional, longitudinal study. This is particularly true of children whose parents have chronic migraine (CM) versus episodic migraine (EM), reported Dawn C. Buse, PhD, at the 58th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Headache Society, “This finding is not surprising. When more days are affected by migraine, the family is more likely to experience disruptions,” she noted. The study also demonstrated that adolescents whose parents have CM are significantly more likely than children of parents who have EM to have moderate or severe anxiety.

Assessing Family Burden

The Chronic Migraine Epidemiology and Outcomes (CaMEO) Study recruited a demographically representative sample of the US population using an Internet panel. Of nearly 490,000 invitees, 16,789 respondents met International Classification of Headache Disorders-3β criteria for migraine. Investigators categorized these respondents as having CM (ie, 15 or more headache days/month for the past three months) or EM (ie, fewer than 15 headache days/month for the past three months).

For the current analysis, Dr. Buse, Director of Behav-
ioral Medicine at the Montefiore Headache Center in
Bronx, New York, and colleagues examined data from the
Family Burden Module of the CaMEO Study. Parents were
asked to nominate a cohabitating child, grandchild, step-
child, or child for whom they were a guardian to partici-
pate in the study and form a parent–adolescent dyad. Links
to the surveys were emailed to the invited adolescents
between ages 13 and 21. The adolescents completed the
confidential surveys themselves.

Disrupted Social Interactions

In all 3,417 emails were sent, and 1,411 surveys were completed by 168 (11.9%) adolescents who had a parent with CM and 1,243 (88.1%) adolescents who had a parent with EM. When asked, “Because of your parent’s headache, how many times in the past 30 days did you need help from your parent and couldn’t get it?” 50% of those with parents with CM responded affirmatively, as did 27% of children of parents with EM.

Similarly, 36% and 16% of children of a parent with CM and EM, respectively, found it hard to concentrate on schoolwork or get homework done; 46% and 22%

SEPTEMBER 2016

AMERICAN HEADACHE SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING

Dawn C. Buse, PhD

2016 Meeting AHS
Highlights From the

Adolescents whose parents have chronic migraine are significantly more likely than children of parents who have episodic migraine to have moderate or severe anxiety.