An Epidemiological Survey On Primary Headache Disorders Among Nursing Staff In North China

Objective:To investigate the prevalence and clinical characteristics of primary headache, associated factors with primary headache, among nursing staff in mainland China. A special attention was paid to the relationship between headache and sleep disorders, anxiety, depression. Ultimately, we may improve the prevention and treatment of primary headache among nursing staff according to our result.Method:Stratified random cluster sampling was used to select 1102 nurses from various departments in three hospitals in north China. The structured questionnaire included four part:(1) epidemiological data and occupational characteristics; (2) headache profile; (3) Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI); (4) Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS). The diagnostic criteria were based on the International Classification of Headache Disorders,3rd edition (beta version) (ICHD-3-beta).Result: The response rate was 93.0%. Among nursing staff, the 1-year prevalence of primary headache disorders was 45.3%, of migraine 14.8% (migraine with aura 3.4%, migraine without aura 11.4%), of tension-type headache (TTH) 26.2%, of chronic daily headache (CDH) 2.7%. Multivariate analysis showed that seniority (≥5 years) was a risk factor for migraine (OR 2.280), obesity (BMI≥ 25) was a risk factor for TTH and CDH (OR 1.684 and 3.184), and age (≥40 years) was a risk factor for CDH (OR 8.455). Among shift nurses, working a greater number of night shifts was also associated with increased prevalence of primary headache, especially migraine. The prevalence of poor sleep quality was 56.7%, of anxiety 15.8%,of depression 21.7% in allover nursing staff, there are significant difference between different types of headache. Meanwhile, poor sleep quality and anxiety were found to be associated with primary headache. Also, the higher the headache frequency and headache intensity, the sleep quality is worse, the higher the score of SAS and SDS.Conclusions:The prevalence of primary headache disorders in nurses is higher than that in the general population in China, besides, the comorbidity of sleep disorders, anxiey and depression is common. The health conditions of nurses should be a focus of attention. Therefore, planning shift work reasonably and coping strategies of preventing headache should be provided. Such measures could contribute to enhancing the nursing quality and guaranting general health care.