Comparing the Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing on Migraine Attacks (Number, Duration, and Intensity)

 Patients with migraine show resistance to drug treatments due to their side effects; therefore, identifying and using effective psychological interventions can be important in improving their condition. The present study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) on migraine attacks.

 This was a semi-experimental research with a pretest-posttest design, a follow-up period, and a control group. Forty-five women who had been referred to the Future Vision Clinic in Tehran, Iran, in 2019, and were diagnosed with migraine were randomly divided into 2 experimental groups and a control group (each group of 15 people). Then, the CBT was performed according to the protocol of Otis and the EMDR was performed according to the protocol of Shapiro. No intervention was applied in the control group. All participants in the study responded to the daily headache and visual analog scale (VAS) at the beginning, end, and one month after the end of the treatment. The data were analyzed by SPSS software and by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).

 These two treatments led to a greater reduction of migraine attacks compared to the control conditions, and in the meantime, the effectiveness of EMDR was higher than CBT (P < 0.05).

 Based on the results of this research, it can be said that the effectiveness of EMDR has been higher than CBT in reducing migraine attacks.