Background
: Headache is one of the most common symptoms having experienced by many people. High school girls are expected to experience headache very often. Their proper treatment and adequate medical service is doubtful, and stressful environment of the Korean high school will augment the chronicity of headache. Knowing the forms of headache and categorizing the headache according to headache according to headache classification system is important for proper treatment of headache. Types of headache in high school girls have been categorized using the International Headache Society (IHS) system. The relationship of headache with beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Family APGAR score of the headache group and the control group were investigated. Thus, the purpose of this study was to attribute to the treatment of headache in female youths.

Methods : The questionnaire on headache, under direct interviews, was given to each high school girls in Seoul, from March 1 to 31, 1999. The headache group was subclassified into migraine group, tension headache group and other headache group, using IHS system, Furthermore, the migraine group was subclassified into migraine with aura (classic migraine), migraine without aura (common migraine) and other migronous disorder. The students who had not experienced any headaches during the recent on year have been selected as the normal group. The normal group was compared with the headache group, I,e., tension headache and megraine. Depressed tendency was assessed using the BDI; and family function was evaluated by Family APGAR. The date were analyzed using SPSS 8.0.

Results : Among the subjects, 304 (60.4%) high school girls had experienced a headache during toe previous on year. The girls with migraine, tension headache, and other types of headache were 110 (38%), 81 (27%) and 113 (35%), respectively. The migraine group showed higher BDI scores (p<0.01). Also, the migraine group showed more depressiveness than the normal group (p<0.01), according to the scores on the BDI which were greater than the cutting score of 21. In the Family APGAR, there was no significant difference between the headache groups and the normal group(p>0.05).

Conclusion : When headache in high school girls was classified by using IHS system, headache in the migraine group was more prevalent than in the tension headache group and the normal group. And the migraine group had more depressive tendency. When physicians deal with headache in high school girls, they need to be aware of migraine headache and associated depressive tendency.