Iranian Journal of

  Background & Objectives : Migraine is the most common type of headache in children. Over 30% of patients have disabilities, so early detection and timely treatment is necessary to prevent attacks, increase learning, and prevent absenteeism. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of migraine in children.

  Methods: In this cross - sectional study with two-stage stratified random cluster sampling the International Headache Society (IHS) for migraine diagnosis and (PedMIDAS) questionnaire were completed through interviews with the students’ parents. Data was analyzed with SPSS software and chi-square test.

  Results : Of 1117 children with a mean age of 41.1 ± 9 years, 551 (49.3) were female and 556 (50.7) were male of whom 185 (56.16%) had a headache and 40 (2.16%) had migraine. Most of the time, the pain started on the first day of the week with a moderate intensity. Aggravating factors were physical activity and stress, and alleviating factors were sleeping and resting. The pain was bilateral and was accompanied by nausea and vomiting. The mean number of headache attacks in the past three months was 8.85± 7.65 which lasted for a mean duration of 6.38 ± 8.02 hours with a mean interval of 24.70± 26.21days.

  The frequency of migraine in children by age and sex were not significantly different. More than of the children had a positive family history but were not visited by the doctor. About 79.37% of the students had first degree disability, %54.10 had second degree disability, %9.05 had third degree disability, and % 1.04 had fourth degree disability.

  Conclusion: Given the increasing prevalence of migraine with age and the risk of chronic diseases and individual and social impairment, it is important to prevent headache attacks through early identification and moderation of the aggravating factors and education of non-medical preventive methods.