Background and purpose: The hypothesis of a genetic component in the etiology of migraine is getting a foothold. However, to explore genetic associations, precision in clinical phenotypization is crucial. For this reason, migraine-specific questionnaires, well discriminating between primary headaches, are required when large numbers of individuals need to be assessed.
Methods: We adapted and translated in two languages, German and Italian, the Finnish Migraine-Specific Questionnaire for use in family studies.
Results and conclusions: This adaptation proved to be reliable when differentiating from primary headaches, and to be in very good agreement with the standard for comparison. However, discriminating between migraine with and without aura still relays on a specialist evaluation. This article describes the validation of this questionnaire.