OBJECTIVE: The validity of self-reported negative emotion to predict
health status is limited by response biases, introspection limitations,
and methodological confounds. The reports of significant others about
the patients' negative emotion may circumvent these limitations. This
study sought to compare the validity of self- versus other-reported
negative emotion as a correlate of migraine headache activity. METHODS:
On 89 patients with migraine headache (74 women and 15 men), we correlated
self-ratings and significant-other-ratings of patients' negative emotion
with patients' report of migraine frequency and severity, which were
assessed both cross-sectionally and prospectively, 3 months later. RESULTS:
Other-reported negative emotion correlated with migraine activity better
than did self-reported negative emotion, both cross-sectionally and
prospectively. Patterns were different for women and men, however. Among
women, other-reported negative emotion was positively associated with
migraine activity. Among men, other-reported negative emotion was inversely
associated with migraine frequency and severity. CONCLUSION: The results
suggest that it may be valuable to obtain significant-other-ratings
when assessing negative emotion in patients and that the genders may
differ in how others' ratings are related to the patients' health. Lumley
MA, Huffman JL, Rapport LJ, Aurora SK, Norris LL, Ketterer MW. J Psychosom
Res. 2005 Mar;58(3):253-8.
PMID: 15865949 [PubMed - in process]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15865949&query_hl=3
Credit: All abstracts retrieved from PubMed, developed by the National
Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National
Library of Medicine (NLM).
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