Prevalence and Characteristics of Primary Headache as well as Coping Strategies among Medical Students of Taibah University

Abstract

Background: Primary headaches are more prevalent than secondary headache, accounted for about 90% of cases. Prevalence of headache among university students was high. Moreover, medical students have higher prevalence of all headache types than other university students. Aims of our study were to investigate the prevalence and character of primary headache as well as coping strategies among medical students. Subjects and Methods: A cross sectional observational study was conducted among a sample of medical students (from 2nd to 6th academic years) at Taibah University in Al-Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). A self-administrated valid English questionnaire was applied, which contains demographics of students, 23 questions about the primary headache character and coping strategies used with headache. Results: The study included 488 medical students. Their age ranged between 18 to 26 years with a mean (±) SD of 21.78±1.41. Females represented 58% of them. The prevalence of primary headache among the participants was 94.9%. Regarding the usual site of the primary headache, frontal ranked first (41.5%), followed by generalized (34.8%), temporal (32.8%) and orbital (22.7%). The commonest reported quality of primary headache was pressing/tightening (60.9%). The commonest reported therapy/medication was paracetamol (69.8%), followed by sleeping (54%), and caffeine (26.1%). Academic level was not affected by 54.5% of male students compared to 42.8% of females. This difference was statistically significant, p=0.041. Conclusion: Primary headache is very prevalent among medical students at Taibah University, with no difference between them according to age, gender and academic level. It impacts the academic performance of a considerable proportion of the students, particularly males.