Weekend Headaches in School-age Children

This is an observational prospective follow-up study. The study population will include 30 children aged 6-18 years who suffer from a primary headache and are treated at the Pediatric Neurology Clinic at Bnai Zion Hospital in Haifa, Israel.

After the adolescents or parents sign an informed consent to participate in the study, they will receive a headache diary (Appendix 1) which they will fill out for 4 weeks as recommended [15]. They will mark the day the headache appeared, its intensity, duration, and timing during the day. In addition, they will fill the various triggers offered (such as sleep hours, exercise time, screen hours, and a subjective sense of academic or emotional stress) on days with headache and on every weekend.

We will then divide the participants into two groups - those who suffer from a headache in the middle of the week only (MWH) and those who suffer from a headache at the weekend (WH), compare the demographic and clinical characteristics and we will try to understand the triggers of these two groups.

Patients will also be asked a questionnaire which will define whether they are having difficulty in school (Appendix 2) so that we can examine the distribution of headaches of this group during the week.

A physician who works on the research team will proactively verify that the questionnaire is filled out consistently and accurately. Additional data will be collected from the medical record.