Prevalence of Migraine Among Medical Students in Zahedan Faculty of Medicine (Southeast of Iran)

Introduction: Migraine is a refer pain which is common in adults and children. Migraine and its frequently limits the daily life activities. Since medical students are subjected to stresses regarding lots of tests and the implicit responsibility to the courses, the purpose of the present study carried out to evaluate the prevalence of migraine among medical students in Zahedan University. Methods: This cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was performed on 210 (male 94 and female 116) medical students in Zahedan faculty of Medicine during an academic year (2005 to 2006). The questionnaire was specified on demographic data and headache questions based on International Headache Society (IHS). Students' Migraine was confirmed by clinical interviews, general physical and neurological examinations then the data obtained were analyzed using v 11 of SPSS, Chi square. Afterward the percentage and the mean (+/- SD) along with the statistical difference (P<0.05) of the T-tests were calculated. Results and Discussion: The present study showed that the rate of headache during recent academic years was 90.5% in males and 88.8 % in females. The prevalence of migraine was 7.14 % in both sex (migraine without aura 4.29% and migraine with aura 2.86%). The most common of migraine triggers was stress, (73%) sleeplessness (52.5%), too much reading (39.25%) and fasting (39.55%). In this sense the moderate light and severe incidence were 52.27%, 38.18% and 9.09%. The prevalence of migraine did not have any relations with gender but there was a relation between having migraine and number of studying years.