Background: Headache disorders are common and burdensome throughout the world, placing high demand on health care services. Good information on their prevalence and distribution through sectors of the population are a prerequisite for planning interventions and organizing services, but unavailable for India.
Objectives: To find out the prevalence of headache disorders in Karnataka State and establish important sociodemographic associations.
Materials and methods: Using a door to door survey technique, amongst 2997 households, 2329 individuals were interviewed with a validated structured questionnaire by randomly sampling one adult member (aged 18-65 years) from eligible households in urban (n = 1226) and rural (n = 1103) areas of Bangalore, during the period April 2009 and January 2010.
Statistical analysis used: Chi-square, odds ratio (OR), and logistic regression.
Results: The 1-year prevalence of headache was 63.9% (62.0% when adjusted for age, gender and habitation) and 1-day prevalence (headache on the day prior to the survey) was 5.9%. Prevalence was higher in the age groups of 18-45 years, among females (OR = 2.3; 95% confidence interval: 1.9-2.7) and those in rural areas. Prevalence was higher in rural (71.2 [68.4-73.8]) than in urban areas (57.3 [54.5-60.1]) even after adjusting for gender. The proportion of days lost to headache from paid work was 1.1%, while overall productivity loss (from both paid and household work) was 2.8%.
Conclusions: Headache disorders are a major health problem in India with significant burden. It requires systematic efforts to organize effective services to be able to reach a large number of people in urban and rural India. Education of physicians and other health-care workers, and the public should be a pillar of such efforts.