Treatment integrity of relaxation training for tension headaches

Treatment integrity procedures, generally lacking in previous research, were employed for evaluation of relaxation training for tension headaches. Treatment integrity is the extent to which the therapist implements the relaxation procedure as described, and the degree to which the patients comply with the therapist's instructions. Objective compliance with the home practice of relaxation training was assessed using a microcomputer-based method which required the patient to squeeze a hand control when instructed to tense a muscle. A single-case replication design with three tension headache patients was used. The dependent variables were taken from patients' self-reported daily headache data. Results indicate that: (a) the therapist accurately adhered to the relaxation training protocol; (b) headache frequency decreased in all patients from baseline to 1-year follow-up (improvements ranged from 72.7% to 98.2%); and (c) improvement was greater with higher compliance.