Social validation of the headache diary

Ratings obtained from the significant others of treated headache patients were compared to daily diary ratings made by the patients themselves in order to socially validate the headache diary. The correlation between these two measures was significant ( r=0.44). Global ratings made by the patients correlated significantly with the diary reports ( r=0.36). These results indicate that the improvement detected by the headache diary, the most common form of self-report assessment in headache research, is observed to a significant degree by others in the patient's environment.