Psychogenic headache in school going children

Pages: 219-221
Pankaj Singh (Department of Pediatrics, NKP Salve Institute of Medical Science and Research Center and Lata Mangeshkar Hospital, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India)

Headache is a continuous pain in the area of the head not confined to the area of distribution of any nerve. Headaches are getting common among children especially school going children, and it becomes frequent as a child grows older. The results revealed that all patients were having intermittent headache (2-3 months) for the duration of up to 2 years. Headache was not affecting the sleep activity or appetite of the child. The factors initiating the headache included disturbed family patterns, family phobia, differential parenting styles including over expectations or ignoring. The heavy school work lead to fear of studies that in turn affected the attendance and the scholastic performance. To some extent, the surrounding environmental factors also lead to difficulty in social adjustment. These certain issues lead to stress headaches for most of the children almost every day. In no case, any family history of any psychiatric illness, traumas or any such kind of headaches as those of migraine, sinusitis, etc. was understood. It was also seen that in most cases girls were more affected than boys.