Coping Skills for Migraine: A 6-Month Program

Visual Analog Scale (VAS) is a pain intensity measurement scale. It consists of a horizontal line 10 cm in length. The participants were asked to indicate their average pain over the last month by drawing a line, placing a dot, or marking a point on this line. The value of 10 on the line's right side represents severe pain, while the value of 0 on the left side represents the absence of pain. This indicates that the maximum degree of pain is at the far right boundary, and the minimum is at the far left boundary. The length of the distance between the point the participants mark on the line and the point representing the absence of pain indicates the intensity of their pain. The internal consistency of the VAS scale has been found to be 0.82 .

Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) is a quality of life scale used to measure individuals' perceived health problems and how they affect their daily activities. It was developed by a group of researchers in the Department of Community Health at the University of Nottingham, England, in 1975 and completed in 1981. The NHP includes 38 items under six main headings of health: pain (8 items), emotional reactions (9 items), sleep (5 items), social isolation (5 items), physical mobility (8 items), and energy level (3 items). Individuals respond with either a yes or no to the item that is appropriate for them. Scores for each parameter range from 0 to 100, with a maximum total score of 600. The higher the score for any parameter, the more severe the perceived problem. This study used the Turkish version of the NHP, which has demonstrated excellent internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.82.

The Migraine Disability Assessment Scale (MIDAS) is used to evaluate disability caused by migraine. It is a valid and reliable scale developed by Stewart et al. to investigate the impact of migraine over the past three months. MIDAS's 1st, 3rd, and fifth questions provide the number of days missed due to migraine-related absence from school/work, household, and leisure activities. The 2nd and 4th questions provide the number of days with a 50% reduction in work/school performance due to migraine. This study used the Turkish version of MIDAS, which demonstrated good test-retest reliability with a value of 0.77.

Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced Inventory (Brief-COPE) assesses individuals' coping styles. It consists of 14 subscales, each containing two items, for a total of 28 items, to evaluate active coping, planning, using instrumental support, using emotional support, venting, self-distraction, behavioral disengagement, self-blame, positive reframing, humor, substance use, denial, acceptance, and religion coping. Each subscale is evaluated separately. The scale items include 4-point Likert-type response options, with responses ranging from "4. Mostly true" to "1. Not at all true." Low scores indicate less use of the coping style, while high scores indicate greater use. This study used the Turkish version of the Brief COPE, which demonstrates a high internal consistency with a Cronbach alpha value of 0.85.