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. 2020 Nov 27:11:562634.
doi: 10.3389/fneur.2020.562634. eCollection 2020.

Prevalence of Headache in Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 14,275 Patients

Md Asiful Islam  1 , Sayeda Sadia Alam  2 , Shoumik Kundu  2 , Tareq Hossan  2   3 , Mohammad Amjad Kamal  4   5   6 , Cinzia Cavestro  7
Affiliations

Prevalence of Headache in Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 14,275 Patients

Md Asiful Islam et al. Front Neurol. .

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) started to spread globally since December 2019 from Wuhan, China. Headache has been observed as one of the clinical manifestations in COVID-19 patients. We aimed to conduct a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the overall pooled prevalence of headache in COVID-19 patients. Methods: PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar databases were searched to identify studies published between December 2019 and March 2020. Adult (≥18 years) COVID-19 patients were considered eligible. We used random-effects model to estimate the pooled prevalence with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Quality assessment was done using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools. This study is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020182529). Results: We identified 2,055 studies, of which 86 studies (n = 14,275, 49.4% female) were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, the pooled prevalence of headache in COVID-19 patients was 10.1% [95% CI: 8.76-11.49]. There was no significant difference of headache prevalence in severe or critical vs. non-severe (RR: 1.05, p = 0.78), survived (recovered or discharged) vs. non-survived (RR: 1.36, p = 0.23), and ICU vs. non-ICU (RR: 1.06, p = 0.87) COVID-19 patients. We detected 64.0, 34.9, and 1.1% of the included studies as high, moderate, and low quality, respectively. Conclusions: From the first 4-month data of the outbreak, headache was detected in 10.1% of the adult COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; clinical; coronavirus; headache; meta-analysis; systematic review.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram of study selection.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Prevalence of headache in adult COVID-19 patients.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Risks of headache in (A) severe or critical vs. non-severe, (B) survived (recovered or discharged) vs. non-survived, and (C) ICU vs. non-ICU COVID-19 patients.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Funnel plot on the prevalence of headache in COVID-19 patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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