Association between headache and tinnitus among medical students

Headache is a very common complaint and it is increasingly prevalent among university students. Tinnitus consists of subjectively perceived sounds that occur in the absence of an external auditory signal. Presence of headache and tinnitus in association has implications for therapy and prognosis, because this describes the temporality of the symptoms. Recognition of the epidemiological profile of symptomatic students might contribute to interventions.

To investigate the prevalence of the association between headache and tinnitus, and to describe the epidemiological profile of the study population and the chronological order of appearance of these symptoms.

Cross-sectional, observational and analytical study on a sample representative of an academic center. Data referring to the epidemiological and clinical profile of headache and tinnitus among medical students were collected through an online questionnaire built using the Google Forms tool.

Out of the 234 participants, 26.1% reported having tinnitus and headache (p < 0.001). The participants with headache were more likely to be women (p = 0.045), white (p = 0.009) and 21-25 years old (p = 0.356). Among right-sided, left-sided and non-unilateral headaches, tinnitus was present predominantly in the non-unilateral type, but without statistical significance. Regarding timing, 18.0% of the students said that tinnitus started before headache, 57.4% said that headache started before tinnitus and 24.6% said that they started simultaneously.

An important association between headache and tinnitus regarding lateralization and temporality was demonstrated. Thus, these data match the presumption that headache and tinnitus have a physiopathological connection.