A questionnaire study on pre-pregnancy headache and its predictors was
carried out in a representative sample of young adults expecting their
first baby. The study was part of a major project on the competence of
Finnish families. It included 1322 women and 1257 men, either married or
cohabiting (in total, 1262 families), followed from their first contact
with a maternity health care unit. A questionnaire was given separately
to the women and men inquiring about their health and health behaviour,
as well as about sociodemographic and psychosocial factors. The
prevalence of frequent headache (at least one episode per month) was
34.3% in women, 19.3% in men and 47.1% in families. On multivariate
analysis, after age-adjustment, the independent predictors of headache
occurrence in women were depression, menstrual pain, responsibilities at
work and psychosocial stress. The predictors in men were nervousness,
psychosocial stress, lack of or irregular physical exercise and
long-term disease, depression, responsibilities at work and insomnia.