Defense Styles and Life Events in Patients with Tension-type Headache

Objective To explore defense styles and life events in patients with tension-type headache. Methods Thirty-eight patients with tension-type headache and 38 normal controls were evaluated with Defense Styles Questionnaire (DSQ) and Life Event Scale (LES), and the correlation between them was analyzed. Results The scores of immature defense styles and midst type of defense styles of DSQ in the observation group were higher than in the control group (all P0.01). The scores of mature defense styles of DSQ in the observation group were lower than in the control group (P0.01). The score of positive life events in the observation group was lower than in the control group (P0.01), while the score of negative life events and the total score of life events in the observation group were higher than in the control group (all P0.01). The scores of immature and midst defense styles of DSQ were positively correlated with those of negative life events, in addition, the score of immature defense styles of DSQ negatively with that of positive life events, and the scores of mature defense styles of DSQ negatively with that of negative life events, on the contrary, the same result was found.Conclusion The negative life events that patients with tension-type headache suffered and the inadequacy defense styles for these negative events may play an important role in their sickness onset.