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

• Main Authors: Gabriel F Torres, Martha I. Otálvaro, Juan C. Vargas, Yulexi Castellanos, Jeimy Xiomara García, Javier D. Triana, Cesar A. Forero, Carlos D. Guevara, Rodrigo Pardo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Academia Brasileira de Neurologia (ABNEURO) 2012-01-01
• Series: Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria
• Subjects: Colombia; diagnóstico; cefalea; registros médicos; reproducibilidad de resultados; estudios de validación
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2012000100009&lng=en&tlng=en
• ISSN: 1678-4227

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.