Dados do Trabalho

Título

RELATION BETWEEN TENSIONAL HEADACHE AND GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER

Resumo

INTRODUCTION: Headaches are considered an important public health problem and there are several phycological factors linked to the manifestation of this symptom that is related, especially to anxiety. With that in mind, it became essential to study the connection involving these two factors in an attempt to explain this phenomenon and how to proceed with the treatment of this patiente. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to relate the incidence of tension- type headache in patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, as well as its manifestation. METHODOLOGY: This is a systematic review, conducted on Scielo and Google Scholar platforms. Were selected articles in portuguese, published in the last twenty years with the descriptors “stress”, “headache” and “anxiety”. RESULTS: Tension- type headache refers to a mild to moderate pain that is usually described as a feeling of a tight band around the head. It is also the most common kind of headache presented in clinics, expressed specially by pericranial muscular spasm and important myofascial pain. Several factors can cause a tension headache, especially stressful situations that predispose to anxious episodes, like work problems, study issues, and financial trouble. In this sense, it is clear that individuals who present classic anxiety symptoms, such as muscle tension, fatigue and palpitation, usually also have headache as a form of manifestation of an anxious state like a way of “alert” of an anxiety crisis, mainly in individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. CONCLUSION: Therefore, it is a possible to affirme that there is a strong connection between episodes of tension-type headache in individuals who manifest anxious episodes frequently. Thus, neglecting this association can result in an ineffective treatment and it could also contribute to a decrease in the patient’s life quality.

Palavras Chave

headache, tension, stress, anxiety

Área

Cefaleia