PREVALENCE AND IMPACT ON JOB PERFORMANCE OF PRIMARY HEADACHE AMONG MEDICAL AND PARAMEDICAL STAFF IN THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS OF TAIF HOSPITALS - SAUDI ARABIA.

Abstract

Objectives: The headache is one of the most common neurological disorders and was ranked the third cause of years lost due to disability.So This study conducted to identify the prevalence of headache and its impact on job performance in emergency department medical and paramedical staff. Methods: A cross-sectional study using self-administered questionnaire. The sample of 308 medical and paramedical staff were selected randomly from emergency departments of Taif hospitals during the period from December 2016 -January 2017. Results:Three hundred eight staff participated in the study.158 (51.3%) Male and 150 (48.7%) Female.132 (42.9%) Medical and 176 (57.1%) Paramedical.The last Three months prevalence of headache among participants was 272(88.3%)and havingstatistical significant differences with Physical Activities (p=0.008) and Smoking (p=0.020). Regarding the Impact of headache, 86 (31.6%) Little to no impactand the others have severe impact 74 (27.2%), Remarkable impact 40 (14.7%) and Some impact 72 (26.5%).There were statistical significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) between Headache impact test and age, marital status, specialty, BMI, Physical activities, smoking, headache duration, specialist consultation, Medication use and frequency of absenteeism. Conclusion: The primary headache prevalence is very high among medical and paramedical staff in emergency departments. Its characteristics are almost meeting the diagnostic criteria of the tension type headache. The impact of headache on job performance is little in the most of the staff, but there is significant percent of those with severe impact.