Pain
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Comparative Study
The Headache Scale: a new approach to the assessment of headache pain based on pain descriptions.
A Headache Scale was developed to provide an assessment of both the quality and intensity of headache pain. Responses of 150 headache-prone subjects (49 migraine, 101 tension headache), were examined. Using a cluster analysis the adjectives were grouped into 7 clusters including 5 sensory and 2 affective subgroups. ⋯ Migraine and tension sufferers did not differ markedly in pain quality but intensity of pain differentiated these groups. The results did not support the traditional typology of headache, i.e., migraine/tension. An alternative method of classifying headache cases in terms of their psychological experiences rather than headache symptoms was put forward and implications for future research and treatment were discussed.