Development and psychometric validation of the headache screening questionnaire - Dutch Version.

BACKGROUND: Headache is a common disorder which may lead to substantial socio-economic loss. Treatment options include self-management strategies, medication and physiotherapy. Physiotherapists need to be able to screen for the presence of migraine and tension-type headache (TTH), so they can adjust their treatment strategies to the type of headache. A quick screening questionnaire to recognize migraine and TTH in the physiotherapy practice is needed.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to create a headache screening questionnaire based on the ICHD-3 beta criteria for migraine and TTH, and to establish its content and criterion validity.

DESIGN: A cross-sectional design was used during the validation phase of the study.

METHODS: A screening questionnaire was developed for migraine and TTH. Content validity was checked by the research group and a headache research expert. For validation of this questionnaire, patients from the headache clinic of the Canisius Wilhelmina Hospital in Nijmegen were recruited. The outcome of the questionnaire was compared to the ICHD-3 beta diagnosis of the headache specialist. For criterion validity, sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios, and positive- and negative predictive values were calculated.

RESULTS: A 10-item questionnaire has been developed: the Headache Screening Questionnaire. For validation of the Dutch version (HSQ-DV), 105 patients were included in the study. The sensitivity and specificity were 0.89 and 0.54 respectively for probable migraine, and for probable TTH 0.92 and 0.48 respectively.

CONCLUSION: The HSQ-DV is a sensitive screening tool to detect patients with probable migraine and probable TTH.