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Self‐reported headache in schoolchildren: Parents underestimate their children's headaches
Author(s) -
Lundqvist Christofer,
ClenchAas Jocelyne,
Hofoss Dag,
Bartonova Alena
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1080/08035250600678810
Subject(s) - medicine , headaches , girl , pediatrics , cross sectional study , el niño , psychiatry , developmental psychology , psychology , pathology
Background: Most previous studies of childhood headache have used indirect parental/physician reports to estimate the prevalence of headache in children. Aim: To use direct information from children and to compare the results with data collected from parents. Study design/methods: A cross‐sectional questionnaire was sent to parents of 7–12‐y‐olds in Oslo, Norway. The questionnaire included retrospective reports by the parents of the presence of headache among their children during the past 6 mo. A panel study was subsequently done with daily diaries completed by the children over 6 wk. This was done at school. Results: For 2126 children, both diary reports and parental reports were available. We found a 1‐mo prevalence of self‐reported headache of 57.6%. Parents, particularly fathers, reported lower headache prevalence than the children. The difference between parental reports and those of the children was larger when the child was a girl. There was a clear difference for the youngest children and parental underreporting for children with the most frequent headaches. Conclusion: Since indirect parental reports of child headache underestimated headache frequency compared to direct diary‐based self‐reports, we suggest more widespread use of diary registration of headaches in studies of child headache.