The Effectiveness of Stress Reduction-Based Cognitive Therapy on Perceived Stress and Migraine Symptoms of Women Suffering from Migraine

Abstract

Background: A headache is considered as one of the most common physical complaints and a type of debilitating neurodegenerative disorder that affects people's social, communicative and occupational tasks. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of stress reduction-based cognitive therapy on perceived stress and migraine symptoms in women suffering from migraine. The instruments used in this study included the Perceived Stress Questionnaire and Migraine Disability Assessment Questionnaire. The present study data were analyzed using the covariance analysis.

Methods: The present study adopted a pretest-posttest with control group design. The statistical population of the present study included all patients suffering from migraine who went to the medical centers in Tehran in 2017. In this study, convenient sampling and random assignments were used. In fact, amongst the migraine patients, 30 patients were selected through a convenient sampling method that were then randomly assigned to experimental and control groups.  The experimental group received an intervention in a three-month period in ten 90-minute sessions, whereas the control group did not receive this intervention during the research process. The patients were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups.

Results: The results of data analysis showed that stress reduction-based cognitive therapy was effective on perceived stress and migraine symptoms in women suffering from migraine (P-value < 0.001), that is to say, this treatment can reduce perceived stress and migraine symptoms in women suffering from migraine

Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that cognitive therapy based on stress reduction can be used as an effective treatment to reduce stress and migraine symptoms in women with migraine

As the study findings revealed, it can be concluded that cognitive therapy based on stress reduction can be used as an effective treatment to reduce stress and migraine symptoms for women suffering from migraine.

Keywords: Cognitive Therapy, Migraine Symptoms, Stress