Exploring the relationship between maternal migraine and child functioning.

Abstract

To investigate the relationship between mothers' migraines and the roles and expectations of their children. Twenty-five mothers diagnosed with migraine completed questionnaires concerning their levels of migraine-related disability and their parenting and child-rearing attitudes. Migraine-related disability was assessed using the Migraine-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (version 2.1). Parenting and child-rearing attitudes were assessed using the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory. Significant positive relationships were found between the mothers' migraine-related disability and both inappropriate expectations of their children and parent-child role reversal; ie, the more migraine-related disability reported by the mothers, the more they reported having inappropriate expectations of their children and favoring parent-child role reversal. This study suggests that migraine may be associated with dysfunctional parenting patterns. More specifically, it suggests that in families wherein the mother has migraine, children may be at risk of inappropriately or prematurely assuming roles for which they are developmentally unready. Clinical implications are that mothers with migraine may benefit from some type of family-focused intervention, in addition to headache treatment.