Quality of life in children and adolescents with headache: Validation of headache specific quality of life scale (HSQOL)

The aim of present study is examine the psychometric properties of a new instrument, l'Headache Specific Quality of Life (HSQoL), designed to measure the effects of headache on quality of life of juvenile headache sufferers. The HSQoL was completed by 272 headache suffering children (9-15 years old) and by their parents, contacted in a Headache centre and in some schools. The HSQOL is composed by a brief questionnaire on headache's characteristics (frequency of the attacks, duration, localization, related symptoms, etc.) and 4 scales (Impact on daily activities, Avoidance Behaviours, Relational Fears, and a Psychological Distress). All the scales displayed a clear mono-factorial structure and, with the exception of Relational Fears Scale, satisfactory reliability indexes. The total scores of the scales differentiates children with different degrees of disturbance severity and between treated/not treated subjects. The child-parent reports agreement was also investigated in the study, evidencing that Parents-Children agreement is significantly higher for “objective” aspects (e.g. number of attacks in the last month) than for subjective ones (eg., Impact scale scores). Overall results suggest that HSQoL represents a brief and easily administrable questionnaire and it could be useful tool for both clinicians and researchers interested in assessing different health related QOL aspects in juvenile headache sufferers.