Research Submission Migraine Prevalence and Some Related Factors in Turkey Yahya C ¸ elik, MD; Galip Ekuklu, MD; Burcu Toku¸ c, MD; Ufuk Utku, MD Objectives.—The aim of our study is to determine the prevalence of migraine in Provincial Center of Edirne. Methods.—A systematic random sample of 386 inhabitants over 14 years old were interviewed face to face. Diagnosis of migraine was based on the International Headache Society (IHS) classification. Results.—Migraine was identified in 77 subjects (60 female, 17 male). The lifetime prevalence of migraine was found to be 19.9% (95% CI: 18.3–21.5) (9.34% (95% CI: 8.6–10) in males, 29.3% (95% CI: 27–31.6) in females). Conclusions.—These results show that while migraine prevalence in Turkish females is higher than that reported in previous studies from Europe and United States, lifetime prevalence is similar in all populations. Key words: headache, migraine, time prevalence, Turkey (Headache 2005;45:32-36) Headache is a common disorder and an impor- tant complaint for seeking ambulatory care. It sig- nificantly affects the day life of individuals because of the disability due to headache (work or school absence). Although migraine headache is one of the most frequent chronic episodic headache types in gen- eral practice, the prevalence of migraine remains con- troversial. Estimations of the prevalence of migraine in the general population have been extremely vari- able, ranging from 3% to 35%. 2 This prevalence va- riety is attributed to the differences in migraine def- inition, sociodemographic characteristics of the pop- ulation, and sample size. Migraine prevalence varies according to the age, sex, and race; and it is more fre- quently seen in young adults and females. Migraine headache is an important public health problem due to financial and social burden to the society. Days of lost work in subjects with migraine range from 3.8 to 5.6 per year. Direct cost associated with migraine in the From the Department of Neurology, Trakya University School of Medicine, Edirne, Turkey, (Drs. C ¸ elik, Tokuc ¸, and Utku); and Department of Public Health, Trakya University School of Medicine, Edirne, Turkey (Dr. Ekuklu). Address all correspondence to Dr. Yahya C ¸ elik, Department of Neurology, Trakya University School of Medicine, Edirne, Turkey. Accepted for publication June 21, 2004. United States is approximately one billion dollars per year. 10-16 Certain groups of headache sufferers are likely to be underrepresented in epidemiological sur- veys of patients consulting physicians for headache. Because of this we aimed to determine the preva- lence of migraine in Edirne. Our additional objectives were to characterize the sociodemographic features of people who had migraine headache, epidemiological risk factors, triggering risk factors and symptoms that accompany headache attack. Several epidemiological studies made according to the IHS criteria are valu- able because they give important information about migraine. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study was conducted in Edirne city center, which is located on borderline of Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria, in the northwestern part of Turkey. The of- ficial number of inhabitants is 115 at the city center according to the 2001 census. 20 The size of the sample was calculated by con- sidering the prevalence values of the similar studies about this subject performed in different regions of Turkey by Epi-info 2003. The prevalence value and confidence interval were admitted as 10 ± 3% and 95%, respectively. A sample size of 384 was calculated, but 400 subjects older than 14 years were selected for this study. Four hundred subjects were stratified by 32