Abstract

TORRES, Gabriel F et al. Devising and validating a headache diary in a series of patients with chronic daily headache from Colombia. Arq. Neuro-Psiquiatr. [online]. 2012, vol.70, n.1, pp. 40-44. ISSN 0004-282X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0004-282X2012000100009.

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.

Keywords : Colombia; diagnosis; headache disorders; medical records; reproducibility of results; validation studies.