Clinical characteristics and associated disability of headache among medical undergraduates

Introduction: Head ache is the most common neurological disorder and is broadly classified into the migraine head ache and tension headache. Students are more susceptible for headache. Objectives: To determine the proportion, types and triggering factors for headache among medical undergraduates. Materials and Method: This cross sectional study among 470 medical students was conducted at Kasturba Medical College Mangalore. Medical undergraduates studying in 2nd and 3rd and 4th MBBS were included in the study. Data was collected based on questionnaire, which had 3 sections. Section A includes personal information Section B includes question related to characteristics of Section C includes questions related migraine disability assessment (MIDAS). SPSS Version 11.5 was used for entering and analyzing the data. Descriptive statistics like proportion, mean and standard deviation were used to express the results. Results: Most of the study participants were females (n=288, 61.3%) and the mean age of study participants was 20.68 (1.35) years. Out of 470 study participants 63% (n=295) of them reported of having headache in the last three months with 78% (n= 230) of them had tension type headache. It was found that 66.8% (n=197) had MIDAS Grade 1 disability. Conclusion: The present study revealed that majority of the medical undergraduates had headache with tension type being the most common. Most of the students had little or no disability associated with headache.