Prevalence of Migraine and Trigger Factors among Adult Rural Sudanese Population 2018

Background: Migraine is one of the most common types of headache; it is a chronic neurological disease that affects 15% of the population, however, information about its prevalence in Sudan is scarce.

Aim: The aim of this study was to study prevalence of migraine and trigger factors among adult rural Sudanese population in 2018.

Setting and Design: This is a cross sectional two-stage door-to-door community-based study conducted in 16 administrative areas in rural Sudan.

Materials and Methods: A sample of 8610 adult Sudanese individuals, 18 years and above was selected. A structured pretested questionnaire was used included questions about two or more headaches in the last three months for screening. Participants with at least one positive response were asked to perform the 3-item validated Identification of Migraine (ID Migraine) test. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 20 for descriptive statistics and one way chi square test was used for testing the association of triggering factors with migraine at 95% confidence level of significant.

Results: Four hundred and sixty eight had migraine with a prevalence rate of 5.4% among 8610 study population. The prevalence of migraine was 40% among those having at least two episodes of headache. Females were significantly affected by migraine more than males, P- value 0.044. Migraine significantly decreases with increase in age showed the highest frequency among the age group 18-29 years (38.0%). Family history of migraine accounted to 83.4% of population with migraine. Population with migraine who experienced aura was 64.5%. Already diagnosed population with migraine was 38.9%.The most important triggering factors among population with migraine were irregular/lack of sleep followed by stress/anxiety, noise and fatigue/physical activity, 91.0%, 88.0%, 85.7% and 84.6% respectively. The females experienced migraine with menstruation accounted to 46.7%. Perceived migraine effect was moderate to severe on work/ daily activities/ leisure of 78.2% of population with migraine.

Conclusion: Migraine prevalence was alarming in this study. A gap exists in the diagnosis of migraine that needs efforts to reduce the sufferings of affected population.