Mood, pattern sensitivity and headache: a longitudinal study.

Fifteen persons who admitted to chronic worry were asked to complete morning and evening diaries in which they reported the occurrence of headaches, assessed their mood, and observed a visually stressful pattern, noting the illusions it induced. Results showed an association between both trait and state measures of mood and headache occurrence, and between trait and state measures of headache occurrence and illusion susceptibility. However, mood and illusion susceptibility did not appear themselves to be associated either as trait or state variables. The implications of these results for remediation of headaches are discussed.