Health‐Related Quality of Life in Headache Research

In this issue of Headache, Solomon et al1 present longitudinal data on health-related quality of life (QOL) in severe migraine sufferers. Quality of life measures have long been applied in other disease areas and represent a critical tool for headache research.2-6 Some QOL measures are generic; they are intended to measure the impact of a variety of illnesses using a common yardstick. Perhaps the best known generic QOL measures were developed for the Medical Outcomes Study.3 Other QOL measures are disease-specific; these measures are intended to capture the burdens imposed by a particular family of disorders.