Frequency of certain triggers in patients suffering from headaches

Abstract

Headache triggers are factors which cause headache attacks in sensitive individuals. It is important to identify these triggers because their avoidance decreases the possibility of headache attacks. Objectives: To find out whether headache attacks are preceded by triggers, which triggers appear with patients who suffer from migraine, tension headache and other primary and secondary types as well, and if there are differences in trigger frequency between these headache types. The research was conducted in 2014 at The Neurology Clinic of The Clinical Centre of Vojvodina, Novi Sad. It included 220 examinees. Applying the international headache classification from 2013 we diagnosed the headache type and classified the examinees into three groups. The first group of 66 examinees consisted of patients who suffered from migraine. The second group of 41 examinees consisted of patients who suffered from tension headache. In the third group of 113 examinees there were patients who had other types of primary and secondary headaches. The research was carried out retrospectively by using the data from specialist doctors' reports. The examinees themselves named their headache triggers. The data were processed in Microsoft Excel programme 2013. Pirson's χ2 test was used to test the hypothesis if there were differences in trigger frequency between the three groups of headaches. The presence of at least one trigger was reported by 62% (41/66) examinees suffering from migraine; 41% (17/41) examinees suffering from tension type and 32% (36/113) examinees suffering from other primary and secondary types. The change of weather conditions, stress, monthly period and exhaustion are the most common triggers in all three groups. The analysis of the data showed that there were statistically significant differences in the frequency of triggers among patients suffering from migraine, tension-type headache and other headaches. Headache attacks are preceded by numerous triggers. The most sensitive to them are those who suffer from migraine.