Meta-analysis of the Comparison between the Effect of Psychological Intervention and Medical Treatment on Reduction of Migraine and Tension Headaches

In recent years, experts have been seeking to evaluate and compare the validity and efficiency of psychological interventions and medical treatment in migraine and tension headaches. In this regard, meta-analysis determines the effect of the type of treatment by unifying the results gained from different studies. The present research aims at examining the effectiveness of the said two types of treatments on reducing the symptoms of migraine and tension headaches using meta-analysis research pattern. For this purpose, 21 studies out of 45 studies acceptable in terms of methodology are selected and meta-analysis was conducted on them. The research instrument is the meta-analysis checklist. The findings show that the effect size of psychological intervention on decreasing the symptoms of migraine and tension headaches is 0.64 (p≤0.01). The effect size of medical treatment turns out to be 0.33 (p≤0.01). It can therefore be concluded that the effect size of psychological intervention is large and that of the medical treatment is medium according to Cohen’s effect size table.