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Headache in Children's Drawings

Katarzyna Wojaczyska-Stanek, PhD

Neuropaediatric Clinic, Mikolów, wojaczynska-stanek{at}wp.pl

Robert Koprowski, PhD

Faculty of Computer Science and Material Science Institute of Computer Science, Department of Biomedical Computer Systems, University of Silesia, Sosnowiec

Zygmunt Wróbel, PhD

Faculty of Computer Science and Material Science Institute of Computer Science, Department of Biomedical Computer Systems, University of Silesia, Sosnowiec

Magorzata Gola, MD

Children's Hospital Pain Clinic, Katowice, Poland

Headache is a common health problem in childhood. Children's drawings are helpful in the diagnosis of headache type. Children, especially younger ones, communicate better through pictures than verbally. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the usefulness of drawings of the child's headache in the diagnostic process carried out by a pediatrician and a pediatric neurologist. At the beginning of a visit in a neurological clinic, or on the first day of hospitalization, the child was asked, "Please draw your headache," or "How do you feel your headache?" without any additional explanations or suggestions. Clinical diagnosis of headache type was made on the basis of the standard diagnostic evaluation. For the purpose of this study, children's headaches were categorized as migraine, tension-type headache, or "the others." One hundred twenty-four drawings of children with headaches were analyzed by 8 pediatricians and 8 pediatric neurologists. The analysts were unaware of the clinical history, age, sex, and diagnosis of the patients. The clinical diagnosis was considered the "gold standard" to which the headache drawing diagnosis was compared. There were 68 girls 5—18 years of age and 56 boys 7—18 years of age. Of the 124 children, 40 were clinically diagnosed with migraine (32.2%), 47 with tension-type headache (37.9%), and 37 (29.8%) as the others. Children with migraine most frequently draw sharp elements. Children with tension-type headache mainly drew compression elements and pressing elements. In the group of "the other" headaches, 21 children were diagnosed with somatoform disorders. The most frequent element in this group's drawings was a whirl in the head. Colors used most frequently were black and red, which signify severe pain. There was no difference in sensitivity of diagnoses between neurologists and pediatricians. Because the evaluation of drawings by children with headaches done both by pediatricians and pediatric neurologists was correct for approximately half of the children, the authors decided to prepare a set of test pictures, including characteristic presentations of pain. Preparing a ready set of test drawings may facilitate differentiation for the inexperienced doctors and encourage those children who refuse to draw.

Key Words: drawings • headache

Journal of Child Neurology, Vol. 23, No. 2, 184-191 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0883073807307985


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