While headaches are commonly associated with various psychiatric disorders, whether this relationship is causal and, if so, the direction of the causation remain objects of study. The following are offered as candidate criteria sets to facilitate research into the possible causal relationships between certain psychiatric disorders and headache. It is not recommended that they be used routinely in clinical practice to describe the association between comorbid headache and psychiatric disorders. In the vast majority of cases, headache associated with these disorders most probably reflects common underlying risk factors or aetiologies.

Note that when making any of the diagnoses listed below, it is crucial to establish that the headache in question occurs exclusively during the course of the psychiatric disorder. This should be interpreted to mean that the headache is manifest only during times when the symptoms of the psychiatric disorder are also manifest. Thus, for example, in a child with separation anxiety disorder, headache should be attributed to separation anxiety disorder only in those cases where it occurs solely in the context of actual or threatened separation. Similarly, in an adult with panic disorder, headache should be attributed to panic disorder only in those cases where it occurs solely as one of the symptoms of a panic attack.