Reliability and Validity of the Persian HIT‐6 Questionnaire in Migraine and Tension‐type Headache

• DOI: 10.1111/papr.12120
• Publication Date: 2013-11-19T00:11:34Z
• Authors: Alireza Zandifar; Mahboobeh Banihas...; Faraidoon Haghdoost; Samaneh S. Masjedi; Navid Manouchehri; Fatemeh Asgari; Mohammad R. Najafi; Abbas Ghorbani; Samaneh Zandifar; Mohammad Saadatnia; Michelle K White
• Keywords: Adult; Male; 2. Zero hunger; Psychometrics; Migraine Disorders; Tension-Type Headache; Reproducibility of Results; Iran; 16. Peace & justice; Health Surveys; Young Adult; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Surveys and Questionnaires; Humans; Female; 10. No inequality; Follow-Up Studies; Pain Measurement

AbstractObjectiveHeadache Impact Test (HIT‐6) measures the impact headaches in a 1‐month period. We validated the Persian translation of HIT‐6, compared the HIT‐6 psychometric analysis between migraine and tension‐type headache (TTH) patients, and evaluated the capability of HIT‐6 to differentiate between TTH, chronic migraine, and episodic migraine.MethodsQualified participants, including 274 patients diagnosed with migraine or TTH, were required to complete HIT‐6, SF‐36v2, and a symptoms questionnaire on their first visit. At 3 and 8 weeks from first visit, participants completed HIT‐6. Internal consistency (Cronbach's α) and test–retest reproducibility (Pearson's correlation coefficient) were used to assess reliability. Convergent validity was also assessed.ResultsTension‐type headache, episodic, and chronic migraines included 24.5%, 61.9%, and 13.6% of the participants, respectively. Internal consistency among all patients, TTH, and migraine in the first visit were 0.74, 0.77, and 0.73, respectively. Test–retest reliability for HIT‐6 between visit 1 and 2 showed a moderate level of correlation (r = 0.50). Convergent validity and also item total correlation were acceptable. There was no significant difference in HIT‐6 total score between TTH and migraine.ConclusionPersian HIT‐6 is a valid and reliable questionnaire for the evaluation of headache. However, it cannot differentiate between chronic migraine, episodic migraine, and TTH in Iranian population.