Background & Objectives: Tension headache is one of the most common types of headaches that millions of people suffer from it. So far different treatments have been used to confront with tension headaches. According to the studies, tension headaches usually respond well to nonpharamacological treatment. The objective of this survey is the comparison between efficacy and effectiveness rate of SIT and medical treatment for tension headache treatment.

  Methods: In this study, 30 patients who had referred to neurology clinic of Alavi Hospital and private clinics, during the months of June and July in 2003, with chronic tension headache complaint, were selected randomly. These 30 patients were entered to two study groups and the third control groups. The patients in the first and second group received SIT and medical treatment respectively. The third group was considered as the control group and received no intervention. Indices of headache (frequency, severity and duration) were evaluated in 3 stages (Before treatment, after treatment and within one-month follow up period) by using a headache record device for all of patients. The collected data were analyzed by inferential statistical SIT methods, variance analysis and LSD pair comparison.

  Results: The data found from ANOVA methods (Analysis of variance) showed that both methods (Stress inoculation training and medical treatment) are effective in the treatment of chronic tension headache, but comparison between two groups showed that the group who received SIT had a significant difference compared to the group who received medical treatment in terms of efficacy rate on duration and consistency of headache symptom (p<0.05). In other indices of headache (freauency and severity), there was no significant difference between these two groups.

  Conclusion: This study showed that effiectiveness rate of stress inoculation training is more effective than medical treatment of tension headache (in terms of headache symptoms duration and consistency).