Triggers and clinical changes of childhood primary headache characteristics during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
Acta Neurol Belg
; 123(1): 215-220, 2023 Feb.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2256727
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
Children with primary headache are particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of the pandemic due to factors like increased social isolation, disruption of sleep and impairment of healthy diet. We aimed to investigate the clinical changes and triggering factors for childhood primary headaches to demonstrate the impact of the pandemic lockdown.METHOD:
Children aged between 60 months and 18 years with headache complaint attending the general outpatient clinic between December 2019 and December 2020 were included in the study. Patients were classified according to ICHD-3 regarding clinical and laboratory data. Primary headaches diagnosed before (December 2019-March 2020) and during the pandemic lockdown (April 2020-December 2020) were divided into two groups as migraine and tension-type headache (TTH). Clinical picture and triggering factors were compared between groups to illustrate the effect of the lockdown.RESULTS:
The study included 612 subjects, with 463 patients (76%) classified in the primary headache group and 149 (24%) in the secondary headache group. Among the first group, 267 patients (58%) had migraine and 196 patients (42%) had TTH. Comparisons between before and during the pandemic lockdown showed significant increased frequency of TTH, but no difference in the frequency and duration of migraine. Both screen exposure and sleep pattern changes were found to be significantly increased in the TTH group during the pandemic lockdown.DISCUSSION:
We found a significant increase in the attack frequency for TTH patients during the pandemic lockdown. Reduction in screen time is an important strategy in preventing primary headache attacks in children.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Tension-Type Headache
/
COVID-19
/
Migraine Disorders
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Variants
Limits:
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Acta Neurol Belg
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S13760-022-02150-5
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