Prevalence of Migraine in Schoolchildren and Some Clinical Comparisons Between Migraine With and Without Aura

Abstract

The results of the present study show that migraine prevalence was 6.2% (95% confidence interval [CI], 5.4 to 7.0). The estimated prevalences of migraine with and without aura were 2.8% (95% CI, 2.3 to 3.4) and 3.4% (CI, 2.8 to 4.0), respectively. The prevalence of migraine increased with age and it was found to be almost equal in boys and girls aged 7 to 9 years or younger, but in older age groups the prevalence was higher in girls than in boys. The data showed no evidence that connected migraine with social class. It also showed that except for the aura, the headache (e.g., frequency, duration, location, quality, and severity) and nonheadache (e.g., nausea, vomiting, phonophobia, and photophobia) characteristics were no different between children with migraine, with and without aura. In conclusion, our findings indicate that migraine is a common underdiagnosed cause of severe recurrent headache in children. The findings show that childhood migraine is not connected with social class and varies with age and gender, and that except for the aura, both migraine with and without aura are so similar in their headache and nonheadache clinical characteristics that a common pathogenesis is plausible.

Recurrent headache in Indian adolescents

“…It differs from the findings of most of the previous studies 8,13,17,19 which report prevalence of migraine from 6.2% to 10.4% and in a recent review, 3 which concluded that tension type headache is most common headache in children.…”

“…Definition criteria that we had used could also be responsible for disparity as most of the studies that describe lower prevalence of migraine in adolescents than other headache were conducted prior to the publication of ICHD-2 8,13,17,19 and included relatively younger children. 8,13 Contrarily, one recent study that had followed ICHD-2 criteria 11 also reported higher prevalence of migraine. 7 In addition, a substantial number of children diagnosed of tension type headache in at least one previous study suffered nausea, pulsating headache, phonophobia and even photophobia.…”

Migraine in Assiut Governorate, Egypt: epidemiology, risk factors, comorbid conditions and predictors of change from episodic to chronic migraine

“…The prevalence of migraine was nearly equal in both genders before the age of 20 years (about 1:1) and the prevalence in females became progressively higher with age than males (1:2.6 between 25 and 30 years, up to 1:12.3 between 55 and 60 years). Mavromichalis et al 41 in their study on Greek school children reported equal prevalence of migraine among boys and girls. In contrast, Abu-Arefeh et al 1 reported a lower prevalence in girls than boys.…”

Present and previous psychopathology of juvenile onset migraine: a pilot investigation by Child Behavior Checklist

“…Population-based studies reported that the prevalence of migraine in childhood and adolescence ranges from 3% to 14% [1][2][3][4][5][6]. From the time of Wolff's early portrait of the childhood personality characteristics of migraine patients, the research began to explore the association of headache first with broad personality traits and then with distinct psychiatric symptoms [7,8].…”