Comparison of the effectiveness of pain stages of change algorithm and transdiagnostic treatment on comorbid symptoms in psychosomatic patients with migraine

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of pain stages of change algorithm & transdiagnostic treatment on comorbid symptoms in psychosomatic patients with migraine. The current study was a quasi-experimental. Statistical population included people with migraine in Urmia city. Forty-five people with migraine were selected by a specialist after final diagnosis, and randomly divided into three groups of fifteen. Experimental group 1 underwent pain stages of change algorithm, experimental group 2 underwent transdiagnostic treatment, and control group was placed in waiting list. Comorbid Symptoms in patients with migraine included distress intolerance, pain anxiety, and sleep disorders; to measure these variables, distress intolerance questionnaire (Simmons and Gaher, 2005), pain anxiety scale (McCracken et al., 1992), and sleep disorders questionnaire (Mohammadi and et al., 2009) were used. Mixed ANOVA analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. The results showed that the transdiagnostic treatment in the cognitive subscale of pain anxiety and the subscales of non-absorption, evaluation, and regulation of emotion were significantly more effective than the pain stages of change algorithm. But, there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of transdiagnostic treatment and pain stages of change algorithm in sleep variables. The results of this study suggest that transdiagnostic treatment can reduce cognitive and emotional symptoms in patients with migraine and improve headaches. But in the case of sleep disorders in these patients both treatments can be used.