[Hungarian adaptation of the McMaster Paediatric Migraine Questionnaire: preliminary results].

Abstract

Background and purpose: Migraine affects up to 10% of the primary school children (6-14 years old) and its diagnosis is challenging. The purpose of our study is to present the Hungarian-language validation process of the McMaster Paediatric Migraine Headache Questionnaire, which is an easy-to-use questionnaire for workers in both outpatient and inpatient care.

Methods: The linguistic validation was conducted according to an international protocol: permission of the corresponding author, two independent forward translations, a synthesis of the translations, back translations and consensus team review. The comprehensibility of the resulting Hungarian version was tested during a pilot study involving 31 young children with headaches. The reliability of the questionnaire was examined by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient showing the internal consistency of the items.

Results: A total of 31 people filled the questionnaire, their mean age was 12.58 ± 3.3 years (16 girls, mean age 11.56 ± 3.1 years; 15 boys, mean age 13.7 ± 3.2 years). Almost three quarters of the participants (23 people, 74.2%) reported 5 or more headache days in a month. Based on the results of the McMaster Pediatric Migraine Questionnaire, 41.9% (13 people) of the participants suffered from migraine, and 9.6% of them had migraine with aura. The respondents rated the comprehensibility of the questionnaire as 1.93 on a scale from 1 (very easy) to 10 (very hard), which indicates easy completion. The Cronbach's alpha value of the questionnaire is 0.709, which means adequate reliability, but the complex validation process requires a larger sample.

Conclusion: The final Hungarian version of the questionnaire used is suitable for the next step of linguistic and cross-cultural adaptation, by examining a larger patient population for the screening of childhood migraines in both outpatient and inpatient care.