Research Article
Body Mass Index and Primary Headache: A Hospital-Based Study in China
Table 1
Demographic and clinical characteristics of the episodic and chronic headache groups.
| | Variable | Episodic headache (n = 915) | Chronic headache (n = 396) | p value |
| | Sex | | | | | Female (n, %) | 632 (68.5%) | 287 (73.4%) | 0.075 | | Female to male ratio | 2.18 | 2.76 | | | Age (years, mean ± SD) | 43.41 ± 13.05 | 46.92 ± 12.51 | <0.001 | | Marriage (n, %) | | | 0.301 | | Married | 798 (86.7%) | 353 (90.3%) | | | Unmarried | 98 (10.7%) | 30 (7.7%) | | | Divorced | 6 (0.7%) | 3 (0.8%) | | | Widowed | 18 (2%) | 5 (1.3%) | | | Education level (n, %) | | | <0.001 | | Primary school or less | 501 (55.4%) | 269 (70.1%) | | | High school or technical school | 197 (21.8%) | 67 (17.4%) | | | University | 207 (22.9%) | 48 (12.5%) | | | Elevated blood pressure (n, %) | 203 (22.6%) | 96 (25.4%) | 0.287 | | Smoking (n, %) | 141 (16.9%) | 67 (18.9%) | 0.414 | | Alcohol consumption (n, %) | 43 (5.3%) | 25 (7.1%) | 0.207 | | Medication overuse | 8 (0.9%) | 133 (34%) | <0.001 | | Family headache history (n, %) | 333 (38%) | 151 (40.5%) | 0.412 | | Duration of headache history (years, mean ± SD) | 6.85 ± 9.41 | 11.23 ± 11.31 | <0.001 | | Pain intensity (mean ± SD) | 4.41 ± 2.22 | 4.14 ± 2.30 | 0.048 | | Average headache days/month (days, mean ± SD) | 3.08 ± 5.02 | 22.73 ± 9.14 | <0.001 | | BMI (mean ± SD) | 22.57 ± 3.07 | 22.76 ± 3.02 | 0.311 | | BMI classification | | | 0.163 | | Underweight | 68 (7.4%) | 28 (7.2%) | | | Normal weight | 669 (72.7%) | 266 (68%) | | | Overweight | 169 (18.4%) | 86 (22%) | | | Obese | 14 (1.5%) | 11 (2.8%) | | | Waist/height ratio | 0.45 ± 0.12 | 0.45 ± 0.12 | 0.951 |
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Note: were only two morbidly obese patients; they were, therefore, grouped together with the obese patients. SD: standard deviation. |
