Individuals diagnosed with several types of headache disorders—ranging from mild to moderate to severe—attempt and complete suicide at higher rates than those without headache diagnoses, according to new research from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Their analysis finds that overall, people with headache diagnoses attempted suicide at over twice the rate and completed suicide at 1.4 times the rate of those without headache disorders and that even individuals with mild headaches displayed an increased rate of suicide. As a result of findings, published in JAMA Neurology, researchers suggest that all patients with headaches should be screened for symptoms of depression and suicidal thoughts.

“We don‘t exactly know why there’s an association between headaches and suicide, but our research lays the groundwork for future work into the complicated relationship between headaches and other psychiatric disorders.

Bad headaches can lead to feelings of hopelessness or demoralisation, or worse, as we have found,” says first author, Holly Elser, a resident in the department of Neurology. “There is a clear need for future research that can further explore this link, and at present there is a clear need for prompt identification and treatment of psychiatric symptoms in our headache patients.”

Headaches are one of the most common disorders, with billions diagnosed worldwide. People with headache disorders often also have psychiatric disorders at the same time, like anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, and depression.

Earlier research suggested an increased rate of suicidal thoughts and behaviour in individuals with severe headache disorders, but up until now, there has been little research regarding the risk of suicide across the range of headache disorders, including tension-type headache, which is among the most common and mild forms of headache.

For this study, researchers analysed the health records of a group of Danish citizens over 15 years old between 1995 and 2020. They used diagnostic codes to identify individuals diagnosed with four types of headache disorders, ranging from milder headache types like tension-type headaches, to more severe, like migraines and trigeminal autonomic cephalalgia (TAC).

Headaches from head injury, called post-traumatic headaches, were also included. The strongest associations between headache diagnoses and suicide were for post-traumatic headache, who attempted and completed suicide at three times the rate of the control group, and TAC, who attempted and completed suicide at 1.94 times and 2.4 times the rate of the control group.

“Our analysis can help clinicians better treat their patients with all types of headaches,” says Elser, “taking their mental health treatment into account as well as their headache symptoms.”

Read more at Penn Medicine News.