Complementary Effect of an Educational Website for Children and Adolescents with Primary Headaches in Tertiary Care: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Tension-type headache and migraine are common among children and adolescents, often causing significant distress and persisting into adulthood. While outpatient pain therapy is essential, it is not always sufficient. To enhance initial therapy consultations, we evaluated a new educational website in a pediatric outpatient pain clinic. Methods: Ninety-three children with headache (Mage = 12.66, SDage = 2.86) visiting a specialized tertiary care center were randomly assigned to either an intervention or control group. The intervention group received immediate access to the website, while the control group was given access after the final assessment. Three online follow-up assessments occurred at four-week intervals after baseline. Recruitment occurred between April 2021 and October 2022. Results: Headache-related disability, headache days, and days with headache medication use significantly decreased over time (main effect; disability: β = −0.23, 95%-CI = [−0.36; −0.09], p = 0.001; days: β = −0.18, 95%-CI = [−0.32; 0.03], p = 0.018, medication: β = −0.16, 95%-CI = [−0.31; −0.02], p = 0.026). No statistically significant changes were observed for average headache intensity, passive pain coping, positive self-instructions, seeking social support, pain self-efficacy, and headache-related knowledge. Groups did not differ in their improvement over time (interaction effect). Per-protocol analysis yielded a similar trend: headache-related disability improved…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design.
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