Prevalence of Migraine among Life Sciences Students at Buitems

Khan NT and Ijaz A

Published on: 2022-02-25

Abstract

The current learning concludes the prevalence of migraine among undergraduate students of life sciences at BUITEMS and is found to be relatively low (19%). In addition, a strong positive association between migraine and it associated symptoms were identified. Besides, triggering factors like stress, tension, noise, light etc escalates the intensity and quality of migraines i.e., severity of diseases. Another interesting finding of our studies revealed that inspite of low percentage of Life sciences students suffered from migraine but females were more affected than male which displayed lower prevalence rate Thus, awareness and education regarding the implications of migraine among university students is must and considering the characteristics of our health system, we can infer that this study would be beneficial in the primary care setting in the future, encouraging generalist practitioners to make a correct diagnosis of migraine.

Keywords

Stress; Sonophobia; Throbbing; Sleep deprivation; Headaches

Introduction

Migraine is a specific issue that impacts an enormous region of the planet populace, with a high commonness in females 15% than in males 6% [1]. This condition is depicted by an uneven cerebral torment related with anorexia, sickness, heaving, photophobia, and the anxiety [2]. Migraine typical attacks for the most part unremitting eg.77% of migraineurs have >1 attack each month [3]. The condition conversely impacts the family relationship and usefulness [4]. Studies surveying migraine commonness help with explaining the impact of cerebral pain and recognize its harmful impacts in children, youths and adults [5]. By and large, migraine ordinariness is increment higher in adolescent women than in men [6]. In spite of the way that top migraine inescapability occurs at similar ages in women and men, it has a steadier rising and decline in the male people [7]. The main aim of this research study was to find out the prevalence of migraine among Life sciences undergraduates at BUITEMS and also to identify those factors that contributes towards such pain. Since this study was survey based so there could be under or over reporting of migraine prevalence and also sample size was not fairly large to generalize the results. In addition, another limitation of our study was that information about family history of headaches/migraine that has been given by the student may not be completely reliable since students obviously are not qualified to make a correct diagnosis.

Materials and Methods

This study was a cross sectional study, directed among undergraduates, studying in different departments of Life sciences i.e., microbiology, biotechnology and environmental sciences at BUITEMS, Quetta, Pakistan. The students were selected at random and only those students were included that had experienced frequent headaches previously or in the past years. Married students and students with any type of head injury or disorder were excluded from this study. Informed consent was obtained from these students keeping the sample size 100.Data was collected with the help of self-developed questionnaire, which consisted of two sections:

Section 1- Demographic data i.e., gender, department, family history etc

Section 2- Specialty questions about Migraine which includes questions related to family history, length of relevant history, site of pain, time of onset, frequency, duration and intensity of the attacks, as well as the degree of incapacity to perform daily activities, the character of pain, accompanying factors, preceding factors and their duration, trigger factors, and factors that improved or worsened the migraine attacks.

Cutoff scoring:

Less than 49 = Unclassified/non-migraine type headache
50 to 55 = Moderate headache with little or no impact (non-migraine type headache/possible migraine)
56 to 59 =Moderate headache with substantial impact (Moderate migraine)
60 to 78 =Severe headache with substantial impact (Severe migraine)

By means of Microsoft excel 2013; statistical analysis of the data was done.

Results

Graph 1 depicts the respective departments of the undergraduate students who participated in this study.

Figure 1: Departments of undergraduate students.

Graph 2 depicts the gender of the undergraduate students who participated in this study.

Figure 2: Gender distribution of the undergraduate students.

Duration, quality and lasting period of headache among 100 undergraduate students were given in Graph 3 (a) and (b).

Figure 3: (a) Duration and lasting period of headache among the undergraduates.

Figure 4: (a) Quality of occurring headache among the undergraduates.

Symptoms associated with occurring headaches experienced by undergraduates were given in Graph 4.

Figure 4: (b) Symptoms associated with occurring headaches among Life sciences undergraduates.

Gender-wise prevalence of Migraine among 100 Life sciences undergraduate students were given in Graph 5

Figure 5: Gender-wise prevalence of Migraine among Life sciences undergraduates.

Overall prevalence of Migraine among 100 Life sciences undergraduate students were given in Graph 6

Figure 6: Overall prevalence of migraine.

Discussion

The motive of the present study was to discover the prevalence and the main causes of Migraine among the undergraduate students of Life Sciences at BUITEMS. Out of 100 sample size,59% of students were females and the rest of them were males i.e., 41% as shown in graph 2 and figure 2. The findings of present study showed that the overall prevalence of Migraine among n=100 was significantly low i.e., 19% though a very high proportion of undergraduate students i.e., 64% experienced headaches but not of migraine type as depicted in graph 6 and figure 6. The possible reason for this is since Life Sciences students are subjected to stresses regarding lots of academic tests and the implicit responsibility to the courses [8]. Duration and quality of the headaches among the students varies as shown in graph 3 that 41% students suffered from headache on monthly basis and 8 students reported weekly headaches while the lasting period of headaches noted for a high percentage of students i.e., 31% were for several minutes which can be attributed to headaches of non-migraine type which can easily be treated with commonly used medications however 7% of the undergraduates’ headaches lasted for few days that can be attributed to migraine type headaches that lasts for days with severity [9].On the other hand 16% of the students whose headache lasted for hours, the most possible reasons was not taking drugs during the onset of headaches or delayed intake resulting in delayed drug action [10].As it can be seen clearly that throbbing was the most common type of headache quality reported in 16 % of the undergraduates which is one of the characteristics of migraine [11].Students tends to consider initial headache less serious but with running time if headache isn’t treated properly, it could become more and more severe with prominent symptoms of migraine which could have adverse effect on their daily life’s [12]. If the headache isn’t treated properly at time, it could be even led to severe migraine episodes. Another interesting finding reveled that the symptoms of migraine such as nausea was reported in 18% of the undergraduates was the most common symptom followed by vomiting or nasal congestion [13]. While, photophobia, odor sensitivity, etc were other symptoms that were reported in smaller proportion of students who were sensitive to these factors [14]. However, Sonophobia due to loud music, noise etc accounts for high proportion i.e., 29% [15]. The major triggers factor identified by the undergraduates that causes migraine were stress either emotional or academic related, electronic media use and sleep deprivation [16,17]. In addition, worsening of migraine symptoms were caused by bright light, physical exertion, penetrating odor and noise [18]. Gender had a statistically significant relation with migraine as our studies revealed that gender-wise prevalence of migraine i.e., Graph 5 was found to be high in females i.e.,24% while 12% among male students. Thus, from the following results it can be concluded that migraine was more frequent, of greater severity, and of longer duration in females and is in accordance with the results of previous studies [19,20].Generally, migraine commonness is higher in juvenile young females than in young adult young men [21].Despite the fact that migraine pervasiveness happens at comparative ages in ladies and men, it has a steadier ascent and decrease in the male populace [22].However the overall prevalence of migraine was reported to be low i.e. 19% as indicated in graph 6. Migraine could have the possible chance of 80% to be transferred from the parents to the offspring [23]. Therefore, further studies should be conducted to discover the genetics involved in triggering migraine in both the genders. Thus, awareness and education regarding migraine is must since.

Conclusion

Thus, this study may help in the diagnosis of migraine, a common disorder that is still underdiagnosed and considered a troublesome condition in our country, with considerable personal and societal consequences. Considering the characteristics of our health system, we can infer that this study would be beneficial in the primary care setting in the future, encouraging generalist practitioners to make a correct diagnosis of migraine.

Journal of Community Medicine and Health Research