The PACE study: lifetime and past-year prevalence of headache in Parma’s adult general population

Headache is a widespread disorder and therefore it has a strong impact on quality of life. In the present work we focused on lifetime and past-year prevalence of headache in general and by gender, in a population-based sample in Parma. A total of 904 subjects representative of Parma’s adult general population were interviewed face-to-face by a physician from the Parma Headache Centre, using a validated questionnaire. The lifetime prevalence of headache was 69.1%, i.e. 75.8% in women and 60.6% in men; the crude past-year prevalence of headache was 42.8%, i.e. 52.0% in women and 31.1% in men. Both lifetime and past-year prevalence rates were significantly higher in females than in males (odds ratio, respectively, 2.0 and 2.4). In our study, past-year prevalence decreased after age 50 in both genders. Most people suffer from one headache subtype. In over 80% of cases, headache starts before age 40 and therefore people were not very likely to develop headache after 50 years. The past-year and lifetime prevalence rate of headache in general that we found in our study falls within the lower range of values for headache prevalence in European countries. Further researches need to be set in the Italian epidemiological background.