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. In this article, the authors aimed to conduct a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the overall pooled prevalence of headache in COVID-19 patients. 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. The authors used a 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. 2,055 studies were identified, 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 in headache prevalence between 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. The authors assessed 64.0, 34.9, and 1.1% of the included studies as high, moderate, and low quality, respectively. They concluded that, during the first 4 months of the outbreak, headache was detected in 10.1% of adult COVID-19 patients.
DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2020.562634