Devising and validating a headache diary in a series of patients with chronic daily headache from Colombia

OBJECTIVE: To devise and test the reliability and validity of a brief headache diary in a series of Colombian patients with chronic daily headache. METHODS: The study was designed in five stages: selection of domains (group of patients and experts); initial devising of the items (writing group); identification of non-understandable items (n=20); assessment of internal consistency (n=100); assessment of validity and assessment of sensitivity to change during seven consecutive days (n=25, 175 observations). RESULTS: Five domains were selected: headache presence, severity and length of pain, analgesics intake, and missing workdays. The headache diary is internally consistent (≈75% of rotated variance), correlates with the medical interview (Spearman's rho and Kendall's tau over 0.8 for each domain) and it has an adequate and stable sensitivity and specificity (82 to 96%). CONCLUSIONS: This headache diary is a reliable and valid instrument and represents the most important features affecting Colombian patients with chronic daily headache.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Torres,Gabriel F, Otálvaro,Martha I., Vargas,Juan C., Castellanos,Yulexi, García,Jeimy Xiomara, Triana,Javier D., Forero,Cesar A., Guevara,Carlos D., Pardo,Rodrigo
Format:	Digital revista
Language:	English
Published:	Academia Brasileira de Neurologia - ABNEURO 2012
Online Access:	http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2012000100009
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