The Headache Under-Response to Treatment (HURT) Questionnaire: Assessment of utility in headache specialist care

The HURT Questionnaire consists of eight questions which the patient answers as a measure of effectiveness of intervention against headache. This first assessment of clinical utility was conducted in headache specialist centres in three countries in order to demonstrate that HURT was responsive to change induced by effective management. We administered HURT on three occasions to 159 consecutive patients seeking non-urgent care from centres in Denmark and the United Kingdom: the first before the initial visit to the centres; the second at the initial visit; and the third when the specialist judged that the best possible outcome had been achieved in each patient. Questionnaires were also answered by 42 patients at initial and final visits to a centre in Italy. Internal consistency reliability was very good ( α = 0.85) while test-retest reliability was fair to low ( κ = 0.38–0.62 and rs = 0.49–0.76), possibly because headache was unstable prior to start of management. There were significant changes in responses post-intervention compared with baseline ( p