Headache syndromes amongst schoolchildren in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
We evaluated 1,400 randomly selected Saudi children in grades 1 through 9 to determine the prevalence of migraine and tension-type headache. Of the 1400 distributed questionnaires, 1,181 (84.3%) were completed properly and so served as the basis for analysis. There were 573 boys (48.5%) and 608 girls (51.5%). Ages ranged from 6 to 18 years. Five hundred eighty-eight children (49.8%; 272 boys and 316 girls) had recurrent headache episodes not related to febrile illness in the year preceding the survey. Eighty-four children (7.1%; 37 boys and 47 girls) had recurrent episodes of migraine, and 504 (42.7%; 232 boys and 272 girls) had recurrent episodes of nonmigraine headache. For both boys and girls, the age-specific prevalence rate for nonmigraine headache rose steadily from around 15% at aged 6 to 7 years to nearly 60% after aged 15. For migraine, there was a sharp increase in the prevalence rate (from around 2% to around 9%) at aged 10 to 11, also in both boys and girls. Age-adjusted prevalence for migraine between aged 6 and 15 was 6.2%. Due to the relatively poor sensitivity of some of the IHS criteria in children, this figure may underestimate the true magnitude of migraine in the population studied.
Al Jumah
M
M
Section of Neurology, King Fahd National Guard Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Awada
A
A
Al Azzam
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D011897:Random Allocation; D012008:Recurrence; D012529:Saudi Arabia / Q000453:epidemiology; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*