Assessment of Parenting Attitudes by Children and Adolescents with Migraine

Purpose: We aimed to investigate the parenting attitudes reported by patients and their relationships with the characteristics of headaches in children and adolescents with migraine. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of medical records of children and adolescents with migrainous headaches (n=115; 59.1% female; mean age, 11.89±2.00 years). Children evalu-ated parental attitudes using the Parenting Attitude Test-Youth (PAT-Y), which comprises eight subscales and four newly devised secondary subscales. Headache severity was calculated by the visual analog scale (VAS), monthly frequency (MF), and VAS×MF/4 (VF). The scores of PAT-Y subscales and the correlations between PAT-Y scores and headache severity were analyzed by age group and sex. Scores for children’s depression inventory, childhood behavior checklists, and an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder scale were also analyzed. Results: In the elementary school age group, VAS was weakly negatively correlated with the “achievement press” (r=–0.28, P <0.05) and “high expectation” (r=–0.25, P <0.05) attitudes, and VF was weakly negatively correlated with “achievement press” (r=–0.32, P <0.05), “punishment” (r=–0.27, P <0.05), and “high expectation” (r=–0.29, P <0.05). In the middle-school age group, MF and VF were moderately positively correlated with the “achievement press” attitude (r=0.48, P <0.01 and r=0.48, P <0.01, respectively), VF was weakly positively correlated with the “neglectful” attitude(r=0.31, P <0.05), and MF was weakly positively correlated with scores for depression (r=0.29, P <0.05) and internalized problems (r=0.31, P <0.05). Conclusion: Parenting attitudes perceived by children and adolescents with migrainous headaches varied by age, and some parenting attitudes were related to headache severity. Education on age-appropriate parenting attitudes may help cope with migrainous headaches.