The prevalence of migraine in university students: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Our aim was to determine the prevalence of migraine amongst university students. Migraine is highly prevalent amongst university students, but the exact frequency remains inconsistent between studies. PubMed, Embase and Google Scholar databases were used to identify studies dealing with the prevalence of migraine amongst university students published between 1 January 1988 and 31 August 2014. The pooled migraine prevalence was calculated using DerSimonian and Laird's random‐effects model. Heterogeneity of the results was investigated using subgroup analysis and the trend of migraine prevalence according to the publication year and sample size was determined by cumulative analysis. Data were combined from 56 independent studies, analysing a total of 34 904 students. The pooled migraine prevalence was 16.1% [95% confidence interval (CI) 13.6%–18.9%]: 11.3% (95% CI 8.8%–14.4%) amongst male students and 21.7% (95% CI 18.0%–25.8%) amongst female students. Subgroup analysis revealed that diagnostic criteria (P