[Prevalence of migraine in a population of university students]

A group of universities not related with health sciences were interviewed using the questionnaire 'Alcoi 1992', based on the operational diagnostic criteria of the International Headache Society (IHS), to evaluate the prevalence of migraine. This questionnaire for the diagnosis of migraine was validated in 1993, showing a high sensibility and specificity for the diagnosis of migraine. Sensitivity, specificity, predictive value and chance-corrected agreement rate for the diagnosis of migraine was 100%, 94%, 90% (PVpos), 1008 (PVneg) and 0.71 respectively. The study group was composed by 96 students, men and women; the mean age of the group was 21 years old. The prevalence of headache, migraine, tensional headache and cluster headache was 95.4%; 7.58%; 12.2% and 1.52% cases respectively. The prevalence for male of headache, migraine, tensional headache and cluster headache was 92.5%, 12.5%, 15.9% and 2.5% cases respectively. The prevalence for female of headache, migraine, tensional headache and cluster headache was 100%; 0%; 5.5% and 0% cases respectively. The questionnaire appears like an useful, fast and easy method for the evaluation of diagnosis of migraine in populations groups.