A Hospital Based Study of Patients Presenting With Complaints of Headache to Psychiatric Opd in South Kashmir.

Abstract

Background: Headache is one of the most common complaints which bring patients to neuropsychiatrists and causes signicant morbidity. Psychiatric disorders have been frequently associated with headache, migraine and tension type headache being predominant. Objective: the objective of our study was to study the prole of patients presenting with headache and to assess the prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities in such patients. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was undertaken in the psychiatric OPD of Government Medical College, Anantnag.The patients who presented with headache were evaluated by a semi-structured pro forma and psychiatric morbidities assessed by MINI. RESULTS: 315 patients were enrolled over a period of six months, from February 2021 to august 2021. Migraine was the most common type of headache followed by Tension type headache. Females outnumbered males and stress was the most common triggering factor. Psychiatric comorbidity was diagnosed in 30.47% with depression being the most common diagnosis followed by OCD. Conclusion: patients with headache who presented to Psychiatric OPD ,had migraine as the commonest type of headache as is triggered by both emotional and physical stress . Tension type headache was also seen to be triggered predominantly by stress.