Prevalence of headache and its interference in the activities of daily living in female adolescent students

• Autor(a) principal: Lima,Alaine Souza
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Outros Autores: Araújo,Rodrigo Cappato de, Gomes,Mayra Ruana de A., Almeida,Ludmila Remígio de, Souza,Gabriely Feitosa F. de, Cunha,Samara Barreto, Pitangui,Ana Carolina R.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Paulista de Pediatria (Ed. Português. Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-05822014000200256
• topic: headache; adolescent; activities of daily living; pain; puberty

OBJECTIVE: To describe the prevalence of headache and its interference in the activities of daily living (ADL) in female adolescent students.METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study enrolled 228 female adolescents from a public school in the city of Petrolina, Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil, aged ten to 19 years. A self-administered structured questionnaire about socio-demographic characteristics, occurrence of headache and its characteristics was employed. Headaches were classified according to the International Headache Society criteria. The chi-square test was used to verify possible associations, being significant p<0.05.RESULTS: After the exclusion of 24 questionnaires that did not met the inclusion criteria, 204 questionnaires were analyzed. The mean age of the adolescents was 14.0±1.4 years. The prevalence of headache was 87.7%. Of the adolescents with headache, 0.5% presented migraine without pure menstrual aura; 6.7%, migraine without aura related to menstruation; 1.6%, non-menstrual migraine without aura; 11.7%, tension-type headache and 79.3%, other headaches. Significant associations were found between pain intensity and the following variables: absenteeism (p=0.001); interference in ADL (p<0.001); medication use (p<0.001); age (p=0.045) and seek for medical care (p<0.022).CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of headache in female adolescents observed in this study was high, with a negative impact in ADL and school attendance.