Development and preliminary validation of the Danish headache questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Neurology
• Public Health
• Clinical Research

Background:

• Headache disorders represent a significant and growing public health concern.
• Primary care settings manage most headache patients, yet lack standardized assessment tools.
• Existing methods fail to adequately describe clinician management of headaches in primary care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a standardized headache questionnaire for primary care clinicians.
• To cover diagnostic procedures, management strategies, and treatment modalities for headaches.
• To assess the prevalence of headache consultations within primary care settings.

Main Methods:

• The Danish Headache Questionnaire was created through a three-phase process: development, content validation, and generic English version creation.
• The questionnaire includes a survey on headache management and a logbook for prevalence tracking.
• Tested by Danish chiropractors in primary care from 2020 to 2022.

Main Results:

• The questionnaire was refined to include details on guidelines, headache types, medical history, imaging, and side effects.
• The logbook was adapted for multiple headaches and total consultation recording.
• A generic version was created for broader clinical applicability, and translated to English.

Conclusions:

• The Danish Headache Questionnaire demonstrates good content validity and feasibility for assessing clinician knowledge and headache prevalence.
• The generic version facilitates uniform approaches and cross-setting comparative analysis.
• This tool can guide standardized teaching and clinical assessment, potentially improving headache disorder management in primary care.