The impact of chronic headache on psychosocial function

Chronic primary headache has a considerable impact on the quality of life. To date, this impact has been evaluated by measurements of the general pain specific impairment of the quality of life. Headache specific measurements of quality of life or of disability caused by the headache are still missi ng for the German language. In America, a headache specific questionnaire, the "Headache Disability Inventory" (HDI), has been evaluated which is used in the presented study to create a German version, the "Inventar zur Beein trachtigung durch Kopfschmerzen" (IBK).94 consecutive patients with a prima ry headache disorder (59 female,35 male; mean age 40 +/- 12 years) were exa mined. Cronbach's alpha was a = 0.90,the test-retest-reliability after thre e months was r = 0.87. An analysis of subscales for emotional and functiona l disability showed similar Values for the internal consistency and the tes t-retest-reliability of these subscales. The scores of the different headac he types did not differ significantly. In post-hoc-analyses, however, clust er headache showed higher disability scores than migraine both in the total scale and in the su score of the IBK was significantly correlated with the number of headache days per month (r = 0.41;p < 0.0003) but not with the d uration of disease or other demographic parameters. The IBK is the first Ge rman headache specific measurement of certain aspects of the quality of lif e in chronic headache patients. It can be used in clinical settings to eval uate the current state of the patient or to monitor treatment and it can be used for scientific studies.