Development of a brief 24-hour adolescent migraine functioning questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Neurology
• Adolescent Medicine
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Migraine significantly impacts adolescent daily functioning.
• Existing assessment tools may not adequately capture short-term decrements.
• A need exists for a brief, reliable measure of functional impairment in pediatric migraine.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a brief questionnaire assessing short-term functional decrements in adolescents with acute migraine.
• To identify key domains of functioning affected by migraine in this population.
• To create a tool for use in clinical and research settings.

Main Methods:

• Literature review and expert/patient interviews generated 123 potential items.
• Adolescent migraineurs (n=127) rated item importance regarding 24-hour post-migraine functioning.
• Principal components factor analysis and importance scores reduced items to an 18-item, 5-domain questionnaire.

Main Results:

• An 18-item questionnaire was developed, encompassing five domains: activities, social, cognitive, headache symptoms, and emotional functioning.
• School loss and performance were included as separate outcome measures.
• Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) ranged from .50 to .84; domain correlations were low (0.17-0.49).

Conclusions:

• The developed questionnaire is a brief, reliable tool for assessing short-term functional decrements in adolescents with acute migraine.
• The five identified domains provide a comprehensive overview of migraine's impact on adolescent functioning.
• This tool can aid in evaluating migraine burden and treatment effectiveness in young patients.