• Espen Saxhaug Kristoffersen, Kjersti Aaseth, Ragnhild Berling Grande, Christofer Lundqvist, and Michael Bjørn Russell.
• Head and Neck Research Group, Research Centre, Akershus University Hospital, Lørenskog, Norway. e.s.kristoffersen@medisin.uio.no
• J Headache Pain. 2013 Jan 1;14:36.

BackgroundChronic headache is associated with disability and high utilisation of health care including complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).FindingsWe investigated self-reported efficacy of CAM in people with chronic headache from the general population. Respondents with possible self-reported chronic headache were interviewed by physicians experienced in headache diagnostics. CAM queried included acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, naprapathy, physiotherapy, psychological treatment, and psychomotor physiotherapy. Sixty-two % and 73% of those with primary and secondary chronic headache had used CAM.Self-reported efficacy of CAM ranged from 0-43% without significant differences between gender, headache diagnoses, co-occurrence of migraine, medication use or physician contact.ConclusionCAM is widely used, despite self-reported efficacy of different CAM modalities is modest in the management of chronic headache.

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