Identifying patients who require a change in their current acute migraine treatment: the Migraine Assessment of Current Therapy (Migraine-ACT) questionnaire.
The aim of the study was to design and test a new, easy to use, assessment tool, the Migraine Assessment of Current Therapy (Migraine-ACT), for identifying patients who require a change in their acute treatment. A 27-item questionnaire was developed by an international advisory board including questions formulated in four domains: headache impact, global assessment of relief, consistency of response and emotional response. Migraine patients entered a multinational, prospective study to investigate the test-retest reliability and construct validity of the tool, which was completed by the patients on two occasions. Test-retest reliability was assessed by Pearson's and by Spearman correlation coefficients. Construct validity was assessed by correlating patients' answers to the 27-item questionnaire with those of well-reported measures: SF-36, MIDAS and Migraine Therapy Assessment Questionnaire (MTAQ). The test-retest reliability of the 27 initial questions ranged from good to excellent. Correlations of all items with SF-36, MIDAS and MTAQ scores--assessed by discriminatory t-tests--indicated that the following 4 were the most discriminating items: Does your migraine medication work consistently, in the majority of your attacks? Does the headache pain disappear within 2 hours? Are you able to function normally within 2 hours? Are you comfortable enough with your medication to be able to plan your daily activities? The 4-item Migraine-ACT is a brief, simple, and reliable assessment tool to identify patients who require a change in their acute migraine treatment, and can be recommended for primary care physicians, neurologists and headache clinicians.
Dowson
A J
AJ
The King's Headache Service, King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 9RS, UK. AndyDowson@psim-limited.com
D'Amico
D
D
Tepper
S J
SJ
Baos
V
V
Baudet
F
F
Kilminster
S
S
D000208:Acute Disease; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D007802:Language; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires