This study employed a cross-sectional survey design conducted on the students enrolled at the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine (ACOM) in Dothan, Alabama. An email containing the link to the Qualtrics survey was sent to all students enrolled at ACOM for the 2022-2023 academic year. The total number of students enrolled at ACOM for the 2022-2023 academic year is 720. 82 students (11.4%) filled out the survey. All participants were informed they may withdraw from the study at any point and survey results would remain anonymous. Consent was obtained within the survey by participants selecting the answer choice indicating their understanding of the survey and providing their consent. The survey opened on October 26th, 2022 and closed November 16th, 2022. Data was collected from participants’ self-reporting answers to each item in the survey. After data collection was complete, 78 participants (10.8%) were included in the study, and 4 participants were excluded due to incomplete survey responses.
The survey consisted of 16 items including demographic information such as age, sex, race, and family history of migraine, as well as Likert-type scale items to evaluate the frequency and duration of migraines, perceived stress, hours of sleep, and water consumption before and after matriculation.
The first item asked participants when they first experienced a migraine, with options to select never, younger than 12 years old, 12-17 years old, 12-17 years old, 18-24 years old, 25-30 years old, 31-40 years old, 40-49 years old, or 50+ years old.
The next set of questions asked participants how often they experienced migraine before starting medical school and after starting medical school, with options to select never, 1-3 per year, 4-6 per year, 1-2 per month, 3-4 per month, or 5+ per month.
The third set of questions asked participants how long their migraine typically lasted before starting medical school and after starting medical school, with options to select less than 1 hour, 1-4 hours, 5-10 hours, or 10+ hours.
The fourth set of questions asked participants how many hours of sleep on average they had
before starting medical school and after starting medical school, with options to select less than 4 hours,
4-7 hours, 8-12 hours, or more than 12 hours.
The fifth set of questions asked participants how much water per day they consumed before starting medical school and after starting medical school, with options to select less than 1 cup, 1-3 cups, 4-7 cups, 8-10 cups, or 10+ cups.
The sixth set of questions asked participants to rank their daily stress on a scale of 1-10 before starting medical school and after starting medical school, 1 indicating little to no stress and 10 indicating very high stress.
The last set of questions asked participants about their demographic information including age, race, and sex, and if they have an immediate family history of migraines with options to select no, yes mother, yes father, or yes both mother and father.
Two factor ANOVA without replication was used to examine frequency of migration occurrence before matriculation into medical school versus after matriculation into medical school, duration of migration before matriculation into medical school versus after matriculation into medical school, average number of hours of sleep before matriculation into medical school versus after matriculation into medical school, and cups of water consumption before matriculation into medical school versus after matriculation into medical school. Paired two sample t-test for means was used to examine perceived stress among participants before matriculation into medical school versus after matriculation into medical school. Chi-square test of independence was used to examine the relationship between frequency of migraine occurrence following matriculation into medical school and age at first migraine, the relationship between frequency of migraine occurrence following matriculation into medical school and average hours of sleep per night following matriculation into medical school, the relationship between frequency of migraine occurrence following matriculation into medical school and amount of water consumption following matriculation into medical school, the relationship between frequency of migraine occurrence following matriculation into medical school and perceived stress following matriculation into medical school, the relationship between frequency of migraine occurrence following matriculation into medical school and presence of family history of migraine, and the relationship between frequency of migraine occurrence following matriculation into medical school and gender. Chi-square test of independence was also used to examine the relationship between duration of migraine following matriculation into medical school and age at first migraine, the relationship between duration of migraine following matriculation into medical school and average hours of sleep per night following matriculation into medical school, the relationship between duration of migraine following matriculation into medical school and amount of water consumption following matriculation into medical school, the relationship between duration of migraine following matriculation into medical school and perceived stress following matriculation into medical school, the relationship between duration of migraine following matriculation into medical school and presence of family history of migraine, and the relationship between duration of migraine following matriculation into medical school and gender.
This study was reviewed and approved by the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine Institutional Review Board.