Abstract
Psychosomatic illnesses are being treated with various psychological interventions. Migraine headaches, a psychosomatic disorder, have been treated with an array of techniques. Stress inoculation training, a psychological intervention, has not been adequately researched in treating migraine headaches.The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of stress inoculation training as a treatment for migraines. A secondary purpose was to examine the relationship between migraines and specific emotional states, tension-anxiety and anger-hostility as measured by the Profile of Mood States.Forty-two subjects diagnosed as having three or more classic or common migraines a month were randomly assigned to either the stress inoculation training group, a progressive relaxation group, or a delayed-treatment group, fourteen subjects per group. Each subject participated in a four week baseline period. Subjects in the stress inoculation training and progressive relaxation groups attended at least six treatment sessions. Migraine frequency, intensity, duration of pain, and mood states were recorded every week for twelve weeks. Stress inoculation training combined an educational phase with a coping skills phase and an application phase.The major findings of this study were that there were no differences in migraine frequency, intensity, pain duration, and tension-anxiety between the stress inoculation training group, the progressive relaxation group and the control group. However, in examining changes from pre- to post-treatment, both the stress inoculation training group and the progressive relaxation group significantly reduced their migraine frequency, intensity, pain duration, and tension-anxiety. There were no significant relationships between migraine frequency and the emotional variables of tension-anxiety and anger-hostility.The following were the conclusions of the study: (1) Stress inoculation training was not more effective than progressive relaxation or a delayed-treatment control group for reducing migraine frequency, intensity, duration of pain, or tension-anxiety. (2) There was no relationship between migraine frequency and tension-anxiety. (3) There was no relationship between migraine frequency and anger-hostility.