Migraine in Adolescents: Comparison of Attack Frequency During School and Vacation Periods

Abstract

This citizen science project CLUE compared the attack frequency between school and vacation periods among adolescents. The data collection process adopted in citizen science projects opens up the possibility of conducting analyses by including a large number of participants over a long period and across different regions. The data on 684 migraine attacks reported by 68 adolescents aged 16 to 19 years were collected using an online platform and smartphone apps. A Fisher’s exact test was used to compare the distributions of the migraine attack frequency during vacation and school periods in two different scenarios. In both scenarios, the attack frequency during school periods was significantly higher than that during vacation periods. The use of web-based data collection has some methodological limitations; however, it enabled the measurement of relative migraine attack frequency in students during vacation and school periods. The higher prevalence of migraine during school periods indicates the requirement of increasing headache awareness among children.