Prevalence of headache and its relation to absenteeism among a sample paramedical students in Baghdad-Iraq

الملخص EN

Background : headache is a world-wide problem that affects all ages, headache occur more in girls.

Headaches can vary in frequency and severity of pain, some individuals may experience headaches once or twice a year.

Objective : the aim of this study is to determine the prevalence rate of headache and its relation to absenteeism among paramedical students in technical medical institutes in Baghdad–Iraq.

Subjects and materials : study design is cross–sectional study.

Setting : this study was conducted from December 2010 to April 2011.

The students ages ranged from 18 to 24 years.

Sample Size : total sample of 500 students, selected as statistic convenient.

Results : the most common symptoms that occurred before headache were blurred vision 33.7 %.

The most common type of headache was described as severe headache 41.4% and unilateral 26.5 %.

The factor relieving of headache was rest 34 %.

The Absenteeism due to headache was 29.4 %.

Conclusion : the present study showed that the prevalence of headache was 85.1 %.

in the age group less than 22 years.

It was higher among female students (83.4 %) in comparison to males (82.3 %).

The students had more daily headache attacks 22 %.

The current study indicated that absenteeism among students due to headache was significantly associated with positive history of severe headache, positive history of unilateral headache and less frequent (weekly / monthly / variable) headache compared to daily attacks, but not significant statistically with gender, age and positive history of severe headache.