No abstract

The incidence and nature of headaches in 85 systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients attending an outpatient clinic were studied and compared to those experienced by 61 nurses. The two groups were similar in age, sex and ethnicity. Test-retest assessment of reliability gave both groups 95% confidence limits of 0.09-0.21. Thirty-two (38%) patients developed migrainous headaches and nine (10%) stress headaches with the onset of lupus. In the control group, four (6%) developed migraine and 40 (66%) developed stress headaches on commencing work. We could not document any association of headaches with flares of systemic disease, the ACA syndrome, Raynaud's phenomenon or increased SLEDAI score. We conclude that migrainous headaches are more common in lupus patients than healthy controls, but in an outpatient setting are not statistically associated with flares of systemic disease.

There were no significant differences in age, level of education, incidence of hypertension or disease activity in the two groups. Pearson's correlation coefficients revealed a significant negative correlation with duration of disease in six out of eight tests in the aPL positive group and one out of eight in the aPL negative group. This suggests that aPL syndrome may be involved in the psychological impairment in SLE patients. A larger cohort needs to be studied to confirm this observation.