PREVALENCE OF MIGRAINE AND OTHER HEADACHES IN HONG-KONG

From July 1992 to March 1993, we conducted a community-based prevalenc e survey of migraine and other types of recurrent headache by a teleph one interview of 2,240 households with 7,356 persons aged 15 and above . 311 patients with recurrent headache were successfully interviewed. Of these, 101 were clinically validated. The overall prevalence rates were 1% for migraine, 2% for tension-type headache and 1% for unclassi fied headache. Adjusted for misclassification and non-response, the es timated prevalence rates for the three categories were 1.5, 3 and 0.4% , respectively. Agreement between clinical method and questionnaire in terview was good for migraine, fair for tension-type headache and poor for unclassified headache. For all three types of recurrent headache, there was a female preponderance with a peak in the 25-44 age group. The prevalence of migraine was much lower than in Western communities but higher than that found in mainland China [1-8]. Common predisposin g and aggravating factors for all three types of headaches as reported by the patients were mental stress, physical exertion and menstruatio n among females. Despite the low prevalence, the overall socioeconomic impact to a populous community is considerable.