Validation of a german language questionnaire for screening for migraine, tension-type headache, and trigeminal autonomic cephalgias.
BACKGROUND
To develop a German language questionnaire for screening for migraine, tension-type headache, and trigeminal autonomic cephalgias.


OBJECTIVE
Aim of the study was to develop a German language self-administered headache questionnaire for screening for migraine (MIG), tension-type headache (TTH), and trigeminal-autonomic cephalgias (TAC).


METHODS
Questionnaire-based diagnoses were blindly compared with those of headache experts.


RESULTS
Overall 278 headache patients (MIG = 97, TTH = 60, TAC = 98, MIG plus TTH = 23) as well as 42 patients with low back pain without headache and 47 healthy subjects were studied. The Cohen's kappa for 7 headache syndromes including all combination diagnoses was 0.64 (95% CI 0.58-0.70). Sensitivity and specificity for migraine were 0.73 and 0.96, for TTH 0.85 and 0.98, for TAC 0.63 and 0.99, and for MIG plus TTH 0.62 and 0.97, respectively. Ignoring all combination diagnoses, the kappa-coefficient for the monodiagnoses MIG, TTH, and TAC (193 out of 278 patients) was 0.93 (CI 0.83-1.0). The retest-reliability (4 weeks later) was 0.95.


CONCLUSIONS
We present the first questionnaire in German language including 3 most common primary headaches for use in epidemiological research.
Fritsche
Guenther
G
Department of Neurology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany.
Hueppe
Michael
M
Kukava
M
M
Dzagnidze
A
A
Schuerks
Markus
M
Yoon
M-S
MS
Diener
Hans-Christoph
HC
Katsarava
Zaza
Z
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D008875:Middle Aged; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods; D011581:Psychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D018781:Tension-Type Headache / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013997:Time Factors; D051303:Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalalgias / Q000175:diagnosis*