Background: Medical students usually suffer from extreme stress that may affect their health and well-being. One of these common conditions is a migraine headache, which is the most common cause of chronic recurrent headaches. However, the figures for migraine in medical students are not precise among the Arab population. This research aimed to estimate the prevalence of migraines among students in health colleges at Qassim University and to determine the triggers and coping strategies used by the students to control their migraines.
Methods: This quantitative study was conducted using a self-administered survey among students in health colleges in Qassim University, Saudi Arabia. The survey included questions to explore the characteristics of responders, the description of migraine headaches that they had, the triggering factors, and coping methods to control the migraine.
Results: A total of 456 students participated in this study. The average age was 22.14 ± 1.88 years, 41% of the responses were from Unaizah College of Medicine, and 24.6% were fifth-year students. Among the study participants, 45.4% of the students had nausea with headaches, 39.9% had trouble with light when they had a headache, 59.2% felt that their headache could limit their ability to work, 30.7% of the students had a headache
monthly, while 55% of the students had a headache lasted for less than 4 hours, 41.4% described their headache as being unilateral, while 56.1% described it of pulsating quality, 46.3% had a moderate headache, and 7% had both nausea and vomiting and photophobia associated with their headache.
Conclusion: Migraine headache is common among students in health colleges; however, most of them had a moderate headache. The severity of headache is significantly affected by gender and duration of the headache, where severe headaches are more commonly pulsating and unilateral.
Key words: Migraine, health college students, Qassim University
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