Headache prevalence in adolescents aged 12 to 17: a student-based epidemiological study in Bursa.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of headaches among Turkish adolescents aged 12 to 17 years old in Bursa province of Turkey.


METHODS
A multistep, stratified, cluster sampling method was used for subject selection. The estimated sample size for 12- to 14-year-old students was 1,270 and for 15- to 17-year-old students was 1,117. Our study sample included 6.5% of the secondary schools and 1.8% of the students aged 12 to 17 years old. The study was conducted in two phases; the questionnaire phase and the face-to-face interview phase.


RESULTS
The prevalence of recurrent headache in the study population was 52.2%. Girls (59.8%) had significantly more recurrent headache than boys (45.1%) The prevalence of recurrent headache increased from 42.2% up to 60.7% by age. In multivariate logistic regression analysis age and gender differed significantly between adolescents with and without recurrent headache groups. Frequent episodic tension-type headache was the most common (25.9%) headache among Turkish adolescents, followed by migraine (14.5%).


CONCLUSIONS
Age and gender appeared to be demographic factors increasing adolescent headache prevalence. Frequent episodic-tension type headache was the most common headache followed by migraine. Our migraine prevalence was slightly higher than most of the previously reported prevalence rates. This might be due to the new classification criteria of headache released by International Headache Society.
Karli
Necdet
N
Department of neurology, School of Medicine, University of Uludag, 16059 Gorukle/Bursa, Turkey.
Akiş
Nalan
N
Zarifoğlu
Mehmet
M
Akgöz
Semra
S
Irgil
Emel
E
Ayvacioğlu
Utku
U
Calişir
Nermin
N
Haran
Nazan
N
Akdoğan
Ozlem
O
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000453:epidemiology; D020773:Headache Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D012008:Recurrence; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D018781:Tension-Type Headache / Q000453:epidemiology; D014421:Turkey / Q000453:epidemiology; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data