The prevalence of migraine in university students: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Our aim was to determine the prevalence of migraine amongst university students. Migraine is highly prevalent amongst university students, but the exact frequency remains inconsistent between studies. PubMed, Embase and Google Scholar databases were used to identify studies dealing with the prevalence of migraine amongst university students published between 1 January 1988 and 31 August 2014. The pooled migraine prevalence was calculated using DerSimonian and Laird's random-effects model. Heterogeneity of the results was investigated using subgroup analysis and the trend of migraine prevalence according to the publication year and sample size was determined by cumulative analysis. Data were combined from 56 independent studies, analysing a total of 34,904 students. The pooled migraine prevalence was 16.1% [95% confidence interval (CI) 13.6%-18.9%]: 11.3% (95% CI 8.8%-14.4%) amongst male students and 21.7% (95% CI 18.0%-25.8%) amongst female students. Subgroup analysis revealed that diagnostic criteria (P < 0.0001) and gender distribution (P = 0.004) significantly affected migraine prevalence. Cumulative analysis found that the 95% CI became narrower with ascending publication year and sample size. Many studies agree that migraine is highly prevalent amongst university students, but diverse methodologies lead to substantial heterogeneity in the results. It is shown that gender and diagnostic criteria significantly influence the migraine prevalence and may partially explain the heterogeneity between studies.
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.
X
X
Wang
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.
H B
HB
Zhou
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.
J M
JM
Sun
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.
Y H
YH
Xing
Department of Neurology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.
Y L
YL
Zhu
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.
Y S
YS
Zhao
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014495:Universities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult
meta-analysis; migraine; prevalence; systematic review; university students