[Patient satisfaction with assessment of headache by specialist consultation]

Headache is a common cause for referral of patients from a general practitioner to a neurologist. We have investigated patient satisfaction with neurological consultations for headache in Northern Norway.

We sent a postal questionnaire to all patients referred for headache from general practice to departments of neurology in Northern Norway from 1998 to 2000.

Of 1403 patients, 942 (67%) responded to all relevant items in the questionnaire.160 of the patients were seen in Vefsn, 191 in Bodø and 591 in Tromsø. About 54% (510/942) of the patients were satisfied with the specialist consultation. Patients examined at the department in Bodø were significantly more satisfied (62 %) than patients examined in Tromsø (54%) or Vefsn (44%). Patients investigated in Tromsø reported improvement after treatment significantly more often than those seen in Vefsn. There was no difference in satisfaction between the three locations in the subgroup of patients with migraine. Patients who received a diagnosis or were given some kind of therapy were more content than others.

Almost half of the patients were not satisfied with the consultation. The degree of satisfaction varied between departments. More investigations are needed to clarify which patients with headache will benefit from a specialist consultation.