Follow-up on behavioral treatment of recurrent headache in adolescents

A sample of 108 adolescent students suffering from migraine and tension headaches, treated with relaxation training and attention-control approaches, were evaluated at 5-6 month and 3-4 year follow-ups. Data were obtained for 69% (75) of the original subjects at the second follow-up. The treatments administered within a school setting were contrasted with students' self-monitoring of headache. The results indicated that students treated with relaxation training showed a good maintenance of posttreatment headache reduction at the two follow-up evaluations, 80% and 85%, respectively. Although treatment condition and level of pretreatment headache were associated with a favorable outcome at the 5-6 month follow-up, only baseline headache severity emerged as a significant predictor at the final follow-up. Several variables from the psychological functioning and health behavioral domains found to predict posttreatment outcome for the adolescent headache sufferers in previous research, did not contribute significantly to outcome at the follow-ups.