What is HIT?

The Headache Impact Test™ (HIT) is a tool to measure the impact headaches have on a person's ability to function on the job, at home, at school and in social situations.

HIT was developed by a team on international headache experts from neurology and primary care medicine in collaboration with the psychometricians who developed the SF-36® health assessment tool.

The test was developed from a number of established measurement tools that have been used successfully by leading doctors for years. From your score on a 1-to 2-minute questionnaire, HIT yields an extremely accurate description of the impact headaches are having on your life and your ability to function.

Although six out of ten people suffer from headaches, the severity of their pain is often not communicated properly to their doctors. That's why an international team of physicians and headache experts has created this test to help you.

Research shows that when doctors understand exactly how headaches are affecting their patients, they are better able to provide a successful treatment program. The HIT Test:

• has proven to be valid.
• was adapted from widely used headache impact measures that were validated independently for the purpose of HIT.
• produces a more accurate estimate of individual patient scores; and
• is the most reliable method for evaluating an individual patient's progress over time.

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Publications

John E. Ware, Jr., PhD, Jakob B. Bjorner, MD, PhD, Mark Kosinski, MA. Practical implications of item response theory (IRT) and computer adaptive testing. Medical Care 2000; 38(Suppl 2): 73-82.

Published Abstracts

Mark Kosinski, MA, Jakob B. Bjorner, MD, PhD, John E. Ware, Jr., PhD, "Using item response models to improve measures of headache disability", Quality of Life Research 1999; 8:586

John E. Ware, Jr., PhD, Mark Kosinski, MA, Martha S. Bayliss,MSc and Jakob B. Bjorner, MD, PhD, "Measuring the Impact of Migraine and Severe Headache: Selecting a Single, Global Item from the Headache Impact Test (HIT) Item Pool", (P05.007), Neurology 2000,54:A336 (Suppl 3).

Mark Kosinski, MA, Jakob B. Bjorner, MD, PhD , Martha S. Bayliss, MSc and John E. Ware, Jr., PhD, "Measuring the Impact of Migraine and Severe Headache with the Headache Impact Test: Using Item Response Theory (IRT) Models to Score Widely-Used Measures of Headache Impact and Assess Disability Due to Migraine or Other Severe Headaches", S71.004, Neurology 2000,54:A453 (Suppl 3).

John E. Ware, Jr., PhD, Jakob B. Bjorner, MD, PhD, Carl Dahlof, MD, Mark Kosinski, MA, Martha S. Bayliss, MSc, Wendy Harris Garber, MPH, Merle L. Diamond, MD, Alice S. Batenhorst, BS Pharm, PharmD. "Development of the Headache Impact Test (HIT) Using Item Response Theory (IRT)", forthcoming in Cephalgia, September 2000. Proceedings from the Headache World 2000 meeting, London, England September 6, 2000.

John E. Ware, Jr., PhD, Mark Kosinski, MA , Merle L. Diamond, MD, Martha S. Bayliss, MSc, Jakob B. Bjorner, MD, PhD, Stewart Tepper, MD, Roger Cady, MD, Andrew Dowson, MD, Alice S. Batenhorst, BS Pharm, PharmD. "Validation of the Headache Impact Test (HIT) using Patient-Reported Symptoms and Headache Pain Severity", forthcoming in Cephalgia, September 2000. Proceedings from the Headache World 2000 meeting, London, England September 6, 2000.

John E. Ware, Jr., PhD, Martha S. Bayliss, MSc, Mark Kosinski, MA, Stewart Tepper, MD, Andrew Dowson, MD, Merle L. Diamond, MD, Alice S. Batenhorst, BS Pharm, PharmD. "Accuracy of the Headache Impact Test (HIT) for Migraine Case Finding", forthcoming in Cephalgia, September 2000. Proceedings from the Headache World 2000 meeting, London, England September 6, 2000.

John E. Ware, Jr., PhD, Martha S. Bayliss, MSc, Carl Dahlof, MD, Mark Kosinski, MA, Merle L. Diamond, MD, Alice S. Batenhorst, BS Pharm, PharmD. "Developing Short, Static Assessments from the Headache Impact Test (HIT) Item Pool", forthcoming in Cephalgia, September 2000. Proceedings from the Headache World 2000 meeting, London, England September 6, 2000.

*the above italicized abstracts have not yet been published, but have been presented at the Headache World 2000 meeting in London, England on September 6, 2000.

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¹ Jacobson GP, Ranmadan NM, Norris L, Newman CW. Headache Disability Inventory (HDI): Short-term test-retest reliability and spouse perceptions. Headache 1995, 35:534-539.

² Stewart WF, Lipton RB, Simon D, Von Korff M, Liberman J. Validity of an illness severity measure of headache in a population sample of migraine sufferers. Pain 1999; 79:291-301.

³ Stewart WF, Lipton RB, Whyte J, Dowson A, Kolodner K, Liberman JN, Sawyer J. An international study to assess reliability of the Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS) score. Neurology 1999; 53:988-94.

⁴ Jhingram P, Osterhaus JT, Miller DW, Lee JT, Kirchdoefer L. Development & validation of migraine-specific quality of life questionniare. Headache 1998; 38:295-302