Background: An association between depression and headache is well established, but the specificity to migraine is unclear.
Aims: To investigate the specificity of the association of depression and migraine.
Method: People with recurrent depression (n=1259) were compared with psychiatrically healthy controls (n=851) to investigate headache defined according to International Headache Society criteria in each group.
Results: All headache types were more prevalent in the case group than in the controls. However, the strongest association was between depression and migraine with aura (OR=5.6). Among participants with recurrent headaches, migraine with aura (but not other forms of headache) was highly significantly associated with depression.
Conclusions: The data suggest that not only is there a general relationship between headache and depression but also that among people with recurrent headache there is a specific association between depression and migraine with aura. The association is likely to be explained by overlapping aetiological risk factors.