Compared with healthy control participants, pediatric patients with chronic migraine (CM) report a higher rate of depression, according to study findings published in Pediatric Neurology. Researchers suggested that clinicians should consider including therapy in first-line interventions to reduce depression and improve coping strategies for the management of pediatric CM.
Data for this study were obtained from a parent study that examined functional connectivity in children (age range, 12-17 years) with migraine. In total, the sample included 23 children (22 girls) with CM and 17 children (9 girls) without a medical illness. Researchers estimated the general intelligence of study participants using the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, depression by the self-reported Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI-2), and memory using the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT).
Compared with healthy control participants, pediatric patients with CM self-reported significantly more depression (mean CDI-2 total scores, 43.4 vs 50.2, respectively; P =.02). Despite this difference, there were no significant differences between the 2 groups in terms of CBCL attention scores (P =.08), CVLT total learning scores (P =.82), CVLT list B scores (P =.90), and CVLT long delay scores (P =.85). A higher proportion of children with CM reported clinically elevated depression (defined as T-score ?60), but this did not reach statistical significance (P =.06).
Study limitations included the fact that the 2 groups differed by biological sex, the small sample sizes, and the lack of consideration for confounding variables during the assessment.
