Migraine prevalence, clinical characteristics, and health care-seeking practice in a sample of medical students in Egypt

Mohammed I Oraby,Rasha H Soliman,Eman Elfar,Mustafa A Mahmoud,Noha A Abd Elmonem

doi:10.1186/s41983-021-00282-8

Mohammed I Oraby, Rasha H Soliman + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s41983-021-00282-8

Copy DOI

Abstract

IntroductionMigraine is a common disabling primary headache disorder with significant personal and socio-economic impacts. Medical students usually have multiple triggers for migraine, particularly stress and irregular sleep.ObjectiveTo assess the prevalence, characteristics, and degree of disability of migraine in a sample of Egyptian medical students and to study their health care-seeking practice when having migrainePatients and methodsA descriptive cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study included 631 undergraduate medical students enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine. Participants’ sociodemographic data, migraine prevalence, characteristic, migraine disability, and health care-seeking practice were evaluated. By using the MIDAS test in the questionnaire, we assessed the impact of migraine headache on the daily activities of the students. The severity of headache was assessed using the visual analog scale (VAS) scores.ResultsPrevalence of migraine in medical students was found to be 17.9% causing moderate disability. Migraine was significantly more prevalent and caused more disability among female students compared to males (p value 0.001 and 0.001). Only 35.4% of the migraineurs had already seen doctors for their migraine, and self-prescription of medications for migraine was practiced by 58.4%. Statistically significant positive correlation was found between migraine frequency, migraine severity, and low academic performance (p value 0.001 and 0.003 respectively).ConclusionMigraine is highly prevalent among medical students with predominant female prevalence and has a negative impact on their academic performance and other activities.

Highlights

Migraine is a common disabling primary headache disorder with significant personal and socioeconomic impacts
Migraine is highly prevalent among medical students with predominant female prevalence and has a negative impact on their academic performance and other activities
On comparing between males and females regarding migraine disability measured by Migraine Disability Assessment Test (MIDAS) scoring, we found that migraine caused moderate to severe disability in females more than in males (p value is 0.001)

Summary

Introduction

Migraine is a common disabling primary headache disorder with significant personal and socioeconomic impacts. Headache and different types of facial pain are common complaints in the outpatient clinic. The lifetime prevalence of headache is greater than 90% [1]. Most of the patients suffering from that headache have one of the three main primary headache syndromes: tension-type headache, migraine, or trigeminal autonomic cephalgia [2]. Migraine was ranked as the third most prevalent disorder and seventh highest specific cause of disability worldwide in the Global Burden of Disease Survey, 2010 [3]. The prevalence of migraine is generally highest in the most productive years of life. Females have higher prevalence of migraine compered to males [5]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion