Pain characteristics of headache associated with refractive errors in children

Abstract

Objective: To define the main pain characteristics of headacheassociated with refractive errors in children. Methods: A total of163 subjects with no eye disorder were included in the study. Group1 was composed by subjects with headache, who answered aquestionnaire on the characteristics of their pain, and Group 2, bythose with no headache. All subjects, from the two groups, underwentfull ophthalmologic examination that included cyclopegic refraction.The mean refractions of group 2 subjects (with no chronic headache)were determined. Group 1 was further divided into two other groups:Group 3 - patients with chronic headache but low refraction, and Group4 - patients with chronic headache and high refraction. Statisticalanalysis was carried out to compare pain characteristics in groups3 and 4. Results: The pain characteristics in group 4 were: onset upto 6 six months ago (50%), stabbing pain (50%), frequency of daily totwice a week (70%), duration of one hour (50%), located in the frontalregion (60%), bilateral (100%), not irradiating (70%), with photophobia(50%), phonophobia (30%) and nausea (20%), triggered by watchingtelevision (30%) and reading (20%), improving by sleeping (50%) orthe use of analgesics (30%). There was no statistically significantdifference between groups 3 and 4. Conclusion: Headache associatedwith refractive errors was very rare, even in patients with importantrefractive errors. It is important for the ophthalmologist to make adetailed history and to identify the main characteristics of the painin chronic headaches in order to refer patients to the best suitedspecialist, who will diagnose the cause and deliver proper treatment,so that patients can enjoy better quality of life.

Keywords

• Headache/etiology
• Refractive errors
• Vision disorders
• Child