Arch Neurosci. 2019 July; 6(3):e91623.
Published online 2019 May 20.
doi: 10.5812/ans.91623.
Research Article
The Relationship Between Mindfulness and Self-Compassion with
Perceived Pain in Migraine Patients in Ilam, 2018
Aminollah Vasigh
1
, Asma Tarjoman
2, *
, Behrouz Soltani
3
and Milad Borji
3
1
Department of Anesthesiology, Medicine Faculty, Ilam University of Medical Science, Ilam, Iran
2
Student Research Committee, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran
3
Department of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Kermanshah University of Medical Science, Kermanshah, Iran
*
Corresponding author: Student Research Committee, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran. Email: asmatarjoman@yahoo.com
Received 2019 March 16; Revised 2019 April 26; Accepted 2019 May 07.
Abstract
Background: Migraine is one of the common diseases, which has been considered as one of the reasons of disability and since this
disease is widespread, attention to this subject is necessity.
Objectives: The aim of study was to determine the relationship between mindfulness and self-compassion with perceived pain in
migraine patients.
Methods: This was a descriptive analytic cross-sectional study, which was carried out on the 168 patients with migraine in the west of
Iran, in Ilam, during year 2018. The tools used included several sections of mind-consciousness questionnaires, self-compassionate
questionnaire, and numerical scale pain. Patients with migraine referring to Ilam health centers (hospitals, clinics, and offices)
were studied in the research with the sampling method. The researcher collected data by referring to the required centers in order
to sample. After data collection, data entry to SPSS statistical software version 16 was performed.
Results: Mean ± SD of the total score of mind-consciousness variables was 53.33 ± 4.69, self-compassion was 71.48 ± 4.85, and pain
was 3.33 ± 1.75. Findings showed that there is a correlation between mindfulness and pain (F = 81.78, P = 0.000, r = 0.57), and there is
no relationship between self-compassion and pain (F = 0.004, P = 0.95, r = 0.005).
Conclusions: Considering the effect of mindfulness in controlling pain, it is necessary to perform interventions based on mind-
consciousness. Also, due to there being no relationship between self-compassionate behavior and pain, more research is needed in
this area to provide researchers with complete information.
Keywords: Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, Pain, Migraine
1. Background
Migraine is one of the common diseases, which has
been considered as one of the reasons of disability (1-3) and
since this disease is widespread, attention to it is one of the
most important necessities (4, 5). Psychological factors,
anxiety, psychological pressures, and emotional uncertain-
ties are important factors of migraine headaches (6). Mi-
graine headaches are associated with psychological disor-
ders, such as anxiety disorder and depression, and it is also
influenced by other factors, such as depression and anxi-
ety (6-9). Migraine is one of the most important reasons
of headache, which may occur with untreated headache at-
tacks, which may be taken along between 6 to 72 hours, or
with nausea and vomiting (10). Migraine is very important
as it is the most common reason for migraine headaches,
which can disrupt a person’s performance (11) and reduces
life quality of these patients (12).
Headache and migraine have a considerable preva-
lence in such a way that in the review study done by Wober-
Bingol on a group of children and adolescents demon-
strated that the prevalence of headache and migraine were
54.4% and 9.1%, respectively (13). Furthermore, findings of
the review study done by Farhadi et al. in Iran showed that
the general prevalence of migraine in Iran is 14%, which has
great importance (14). These patients experienced differ-
ent degrees of pain (15) and this factor affects life quality
(16), life satisfaction (17), and mental health (18) of the pa-
tients. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to
the ways of managing pain in patients with migraine (19).
Psychological factors are important in the persistence
and inability resulted from major chronic pain. It seems
that the psychological variables have a great influence on
chronic pain management (20). Another important factor
in patients with chronic pain is the state of pain acceptance
(21). Acceptance of pain is the first step in order to adapt
Copyright © 2019, Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly
cited.