Temperament and character profiles of patients with tension‐type headache and migraine

The aim of this present study was to evaluate the temperament and character profiles of persons with tension‐type headache (TTH) and migraine, and to compare the results with those of healthy controls. The study population consisted of 81 patients with TTH (60 female, 21 male) and 56 patients with migraine (34 female, 17 male) aged 18–50 years, according to the criteria of the International Headache Society with age and gender – matched healthy control subjects (54 female, 28 male). All participants were instructed to complete a self‐administered 240‐item temperament and character inventory (TCI) questionnaire and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The TCI assesses four dimensions of temperament, namely, novelty seeking (NS), harm avoidance (HA), reward dependence (RD), and persistence (P), and three dimensions of character, being self‐directedness (SD), cooperativeness (C) and self‐transcendence (ST). According to the TCI biosocial model, the temperament dimension HA is suggested to indicate central serotonergic turnover, which is further correlated with depressive state. It was found that mean BDI scores were significantly higher in patients with TTH and migraine than in those of the controls. The BDI scores were positively correlated with HA scores (r = 0.295, P