How children-adolescents with primary headache and their parents evaluate the Headache Centre's intervention

Headache is one of the most common disorders that affect children and adolescents and its prevalence seems to have increased in the last 50 years [1]. Paediatricians often send children and adolescents suffering from headache to the various headache specialists for a diagnostic and therapeutic assessment of the disorder. Nevertheless, while adult headache patients’ satisfaction with the treatments has been widely investigated, less attention has been paid to children and adolescent headache patients’ opinions and their parents’ views. The aim of our follow-up study was to analyse the outcomes of the Headache Centre’ intervention and the evolution of headache according to patients till the age of 16 and their parents. Methods. We included 84 patients (F: 45%, M: 55%; mean age: 12.9+2.9 years) with primary headache (migraine without aura: 66%, tension-type headache: 23%, migraine with aura: 11%) according to ICHD-II criteria [2], seen for the first time in 2005-2006, and at least one of their parents. The duration of the follow-up ranged from 1 to 3 years. To the aims of our study, a specific questionnaire was created and administered by a telephone interview, which was carried out according to Narrative Medicine’s approach [3]. Results. Seventy percent of the patients thought that their headache had improved; in particular, 63% said that the frequency of headache had decreased, while intensity had only diminished in 37% of the sample. More than half the subjects interviewed associated the improvement to the fact of feeling better when at school. The majority (60%) of the patients declared to have followed the Centre’s advice to minimize the factors causing headache; 87% had followed the prescriptions for acute attacks and these medications had been effective according to 77% of the patients. Only 16% of the parents reported to feel still anxious about their child’s health, while 84% declared to feel calmer after attending the Headache Centre; 72% of the subjects interviewed and of their parents reported that attending the Headache Centre had been useful to better understand and manage headache. Conclusions. Children’s and adolescents’ headache has in most cases a favourable prognosis; the Headache Centre’s intervention is seen as effective by most patients and parents. Narrative Medicine’s approach is particularly fit to study headache from children’s, adolescents’, and families’ point of view.