Impulsiveness levels among patients with medication-overuse headache accompanying chronic migraine or tension-type headache

Impulsiveness in primary headaches is not well understood.To analyze impulsiveness in patients with medication-overuse headache (MOH) and either chronic migraines or chronic tension-type headaches (TTHs).This cross-sectional study included 119 participants (96 female) divided into 3 groups: the migraine with MOH (M-O, <i>n</i> = 44, age = 36.6 ± 11.1), the tension-type headache with MOH group (TTH-O, <i>n</i> = 38, age = 42.6 ± 11.8), and the healthy control group (HC, <i>n</i> = 37, age = 36.9 ± 13.1). The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 Short Form (BIS-11 SF), Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck's Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were used to assess impulsiveness, depression, anxiety, and sleep quality, respectively.Impulsiveness levels were significantly higher in the M-O (<i>p</i> < 0.01) and TTH-O (<i>p</i> < 0.01) groups compared with the HC. However, no significant difference in impulsiveness was found between the M-O and TTH-O (<i>p</i> > 0.05). The PSQI scores were significantly higher in the M-O and TTH-O compared with the HC (<i>p</i> < 0.01). Additionally, anxiety scores were notably higher in the M-O compared with both the TTH-O and HC (<i>p</i> < 0.01).The present study, which compared the M-O and TTH-O groups with HC in terms of impulsiveness, with no significant differences in parameters such as age, gender, schooling, frequency of headache attacks, and disease onset duration, concluded that both patient groups exhibited higher impulsiveness compared with the controls. Furthermore, the lack of difference in impulsiveness between MO and chronic TTH-O patients with a common denominator of MOH suggests that it may be associated with MOH, which is a shared subset of two distinct headache disorders.