Self-reported headache in schoolchildren: parents underestimate their children's headaches.
BACKGROUND
Most previous studies of childhood headache have used indirect parental/physician reports to estimate the prevalence of headache in children.


OBJECTIVE
To use direct information from children and to compare the results with data collected from parents.


METHODS
A cross-sectional questionnaire was sent to parents of 7-12-y-olds in Oslo, Norway. The questionnaire included retrospective reports by the parents of the presence of headache among their children during the past 6 mo. A panel study was subsequently done with daily diaries completed by the children over 6 wk. This was done at school.


RESULTS
For 2126 children, both diary reports and parental reports were available. We found a 1-mo prevalence of self-reported headache of 57.6%. Parents, particularly fathers, reported lower headache prevalence than the children. The difference between parental reports and those of the children was larger when the child was a girl. There was a clear difference for the youngest children and parental underreporting for children with the most frequent headaches.


CONCLUSIONS
Since indirect parental reports of child headache underestimated headache frequency compared to direct diary-based self-reports, we suggest more widespread use of diary registration of headaches in studies of child headache.
Lundqvist
Christofer
C
Department of Neurology, Ullevål University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. christ-l@optonet.no
Clench-Aas
Jocelyne
J
Hofoss
Dag
D
Bartonova
Alena
A
D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D015995:Prevalence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012647:Self-Assessment; D017678:Sex Distribution