Quality of life and illness behaviour in chronic daily headache patients

Chronic pathologies, above all those in which is present pain, can induce a considerable impairment in quality of life. The concept of illness behaviour is closely related to that of quality of life. It can be defined as the way to estimate and to react to one's own health status. In this study on chronic headache patients, the sickness impact profile (SIP) was used as a measure of illness-related quality of life. The way of experiencing the disease was moreover quantified by means of the illness behaviour questionnaire (IBQ). Patients with chronic headache showed a remarkable impairment in most of their daily activities. At the same time, they lived their illnesses poorly. The longer was chronic headache duration, the more disability was marked. Fermale gender was associated with a more severe profile, both in SIP and in IBQ.