An epidemiological study of headache in an urban and a rural population in northern Finland

Abstract

SYNOPSISInformation on the prevalence of headache and its characteristic features and the factor provoking it was collected using a questionnaire similar to that introduced by Waters. The questionnaire was posted to every inhabitant over 15 years of age in a defined urban and a defined rural area in northern Finland. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested by neurological examination of a random sample of 200 persons. The response rate was 74.0% in the urban and 79.5% in the rural area, a total of 3067 questionnaires being returned. The prevalence of headache in the year preceeding the survey was 73.1% in women and 57.6% in men. This difference was significant. At the same time the prevalence was slightly higher (p<0.05) in the urban than in the rural area. The percentage with headache was highest between 15 and 64 years of age in both the urban and the rural men and women, and declined sharply after 65 years of age. Only in men aged 15-24 years was it significantly more common in the urban area. Education, social class and mode of employment did not influence the prevalence of headache once pensioners were excluded. Headache was slightly more common in urban self-employed people and in urban employees, but equally common in urban and rural students, housewives and pensioners. It was significantly more common in married men and women. The percentage of women with headaches related to the menstrual period was low. The most common provoking factor was stress, the sauna-bath ranking second. No correlation was found between smoking habits and headache in this survey.

Gender differences in the association of life style factors to the prevalence and symptoms of migraines and other headaches among Navy personnel

“…In contrast to previous studies [14,[24][25][26][27], the present study found a strong association between cigarette smoking and headaches, headaches accompanied by migraine symptoms, and diagnosed The present study found no association between reported exercise and headaches or symptoms, while the Denmark study found a significant association between reported lack of physical activity and tension headaches [14]. That study [14] also found an association between tension and migraine headaches and sleeping problems, but not length of sleep.…”

“…These findings are consistent with a cross-sectional study of headaches from Denmark [14] and other countries [24][25][26][27], in that no association was found with alcohol consumption. In contrast to previous studies [14,[24][25][26][27], the present study found a strong association between cigarette smoking and headaches, headaches accompanied by migraine symptoms, and diagnosed The present study found no association between reported exercise and headaches or symptoms, while the Denmark study found a significant association between reported lack of physical activity and tension headaches [14].…”

Health among lifetime victimized men

“…On the one hand, we lack knowledge about the kind of headaches that the men suffered from and it is therefore difficult to determine whether general prevalence is of any importance to our findings. On the other hand, abuse may have been a stressful experience and stress is a known headache trigger in both men and women (43)(44)(45). Interestingly, our findings are contrary to studies showing no relation between violence and headaches (17,18).…”

Headache and neck or shoulder pain - frequent and disabling complaints in the general population

“…Collaboration between clinicians and epidemiologists in the conduct of community surveys of headache has been requested (6,8), since most earlier information from this field has been based on highly selected patient populations. The 1974 Pontypridd Headache Survey by Waters (8) is one of the few population based surveys.…”