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Document Type

Original Article

Abstract

BACKGROUND Headache is one of the most common presenting complaints in patients attending primary care centers and the majority of them have primary headache syndromes. Depressive disorders are among the leading causes of disability globally and can further complicate the clinical manifestation if coupled with other comorbidities. Therefore, the primary objective of our study was to determine the prevalence of depression in migraine patients presenting at a tertiary care hospital to better understand the leading causes of the disease. METHODS A cross-sectional study was carried out between December 2019 and June 2020 (six months) including 66 migraine patients between 18 and 45 years of age presenting to the neurology outpatient clinics at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. Non-probability convenience-based sampling technique was used to calculate the sample size, and the data was collected via face-to-face interviews. The first section of the questionnaire consisted of socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, educational, occupational, and marital status in addition to the clinical characteristics such as the duration of the disease and the frequency of migraine attacks. The second section assessed the depressive symptoms of the participants using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and any patient with a score of five or more was considered as suffering from a depressive disorder. All statistical analysis was conducted using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0. RESULTS Out of a total of 66 participants, almost two-third (n=43, 65.2%) were males, while nearly one-third (n=23, 34.9%) were females. The average age of the patients was 27.59±5.37 years. The frequency of depression was observed in approximately three-quarters (n=49, 74.2%) of the migraine patients in our study. The prevalence of depression was only significantly associated with disease duration (p=0.027) and the number of migraine attacks (p=0.015). CONCLUSION In conclusion, the prevalence of depression was found to be significantly high among migraine patients, therefore migraine might be related to depression. Depression should not be ignored while evaluating migraine subjects for good prognosis and management of the disease.

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