title: Headache and physical and sexual abuse among Jewish and Arab adolescents in Israel.
abstract: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between headaches and physical and sexual abuse. A self-administered, anonymous questionnaire was presented to 2088 tenth grade students in Northern Israel. Participants were Jews and Arabs between the ages of 15 to 16 years. Arab adolescents comprised 55% of the analyzed sample and adolescent Jews 45%. With regard to gender, 56% of participants were females. Of the Arab participants, 18.6% reported having frequent headaches, less than that reported in the Jewish group (27.9%). Jewish girls who were physically abused during childhood had a higher prevalence of frequent headaches (55% vs 33% P < .001). Jewish students who reported being sexually abused had higher headache prevalence as well (44.4% vs 27.3% P = .05). In conclusion, adolescents who reported to have been physically or sexually abused report a higher prevalence of headache compared to their peers.
authors.affiliation: 1Pediatric Neurology Unit, Bnai Zion Medical Center, Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Genizi
authors.forename: Isaac
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Srugo
authors.forename: Nogah C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Kerem
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D018912:Arabs; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel / Q000453:epidemiology; D007585:Jews; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
keywords: adolescents; ethnicity; headache; physical abuse; sexual abuse