Self-Administration of A Headache Questionnaire in the Waiting Room Is Well Accepted By Patients and Useful For the Headache Specialist

Teresa Catarci

Abstract

Background: The diagnosis of headache rely mostly upon patient’s history, but second level headache centres of the Italian NHS have to face the difficulty of a shorter availability of time, therefore we elaborated a self-administered questionnaire to be filled-in in the waiting room. Methods: One-hundred and twenty questionnaires were studied, regarding 90 females and 30 males; mean age 41 years ± 14.7, mostly suffering from primary and episodic headaches. Results: Response rates to the questionnaire were of 77.5%. Responders were significantly younger than those who did not fill in the questionnaire (39.5 ± 14.3 versus 46.2 ± 15.4, p<0.05) and there were significantly more primary than secondary headache diagnoses (81% versus 50% p<0.001). Conclusion: This self-administered tool was well accepted by the patients, it was not intended to be a screening or a diagnostic tool, simply it allowed the patients to better focus on informative items of their headache, and hopefully help the Clinician to reduce visit time.