Abstract

Background
It is well known that migraine is related to sleep. Shift working was also reported as a triggering factor of migraine. The impact of shift working on migraine prevalence, frequency, and migraine related quality of life were not studied yet. The purposes of our study is to elucidate the relationship between shift working with migraine prevalence, attack frequency and migraine related quality of life. Method: All 401 nurses working at Hallym University Sacred Heart hospital were asked a 72-item questionnaire concerning migraine prevalence, attack frequency, migraine disability assessment(MIDAS), and Epworth sleepiness scale(ESS). The returned questionnaire was analyzed on the basis of the existence of shift working(SW). Result: Three hundreds seventy two nurses completed and returned the questionnaire for a response rate of 93.0%. According to International Headache Society criteria, 18.8% of the responding nurses were classified as having migraine. 285 of them were SW nurses. 58 of the SW nurses have migraine. 65.6% of the SW nurses with migraine answered that migraine was related to SW and night working was the most common working time related to migraine. Migraine prevalence, attack frequency, and MIDAS scores were not significantly different between SW and non-shift working(NoSW) nurses. ESS score was significantly higher in SW nurses than NoSW nurses. In NoSW nurses, sleepiness was related to migraine prevalence. However, sleepiness was not related to migraine prevalence in SW nurses. Conclusion: Even though many nurses believed that SW was a triggering factor for migraine attack, there were no significant differences in migraine prevalence, attack frequency, and migraine related quality of life between SW and NoSW nurses. Sleepiness was related to migraine prevalence in NoSW nurses. Revealing the relationship between migraine and SW would help for both unveiling the nature of disease and the effective management of migraine. Korean Journal of Headache 5(1):107-107, 2004