Prevalence survey of headache in a rural Mexican village.
Prevalence of headache was studied by house-to-house survey of a small remote Mexican village where the population was characterized by a low income and high rate of illiteracy. Severe headache was found in 8.9% of the male population and in 10.6% of the females. Approximately half of these individuals gave a history suggestive of headache with aura, but reinterview by a neurologist revealed that in one third of such histories the visual phenomena were probably not true aurae. Only in the over 35-year age-group was headache more prevalent in females. 'Incapacitating' headache was usually equated with 'severe' headache and was 10 times as frequent in the over 55-year age-group as in younger people. Sophisticated interviewers (neurologists) obtained different results from less trained interviewers.
Garcia-Pedroza
F
F
National Institute of Neurology, Mexico City, Mexico.
Chandra
V
V
Ziegler
D K
DK
Schoenberg
B
B
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D012424:Rural Population