Outcome of early school-age migraine

We studied the outcome of migraine from early school-age to prepuberty in a group of 84 children. The children belonged to a population-based, unselected follow-up sample of a 1-year age cohort. At the age of 8 to 9 years, 95 (2.7%) children of this age cohort had migraine according to a postal questionnaire. At age 11 to 12 years, 84 of them were traced and interviewed face-to-face. Only four (4.8%) of these children no longer had headache. Fifty-three (63.1%) children had migraine. Seventeen (20.2%) had migraine-type headache which did not completely fulfil the International Headache Society criteria for migraine, seven (8.3%) children had episodic tension-type headache and three (3.6%) had other headache. Among the children who had migraine at age 11 to 12, boys had significantly more frequent migraine attacks than girls (mean 2.7/month versus 1.8/month; p = 0.016). They also used more drugs and were more frequently absent from school because of headache than girls, but these differences were not significant. Problems in the relationships between parents seemed to be another factor associated with frequent migraine.