Headache and facial pain: a prospective clinical study (version 1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Primary and secondary headaches and facial pain disorders: a prospective clinical study
IRAS ID
290467
Contact name
Manjit Matharu
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
UCLH/UCL Joint Research Office, part of the Research Directorate
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Z6364106/2020/12/47, UCL data protection reference number
Duration of Study in the UK
6 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Headache and facial pain disorders are common, and are the leading cause of disability worldwide in people under 50 years old. Headache and facial pain disorders can be differentiated by their characteristics such as the region the pain is felt in, the nature of the pain, the duration of the attacks, and other symptoms which occur at the same time. Depending on their characteristics headache and facial pain disorders are known to respond to particular treatments. Despite this, the underlying cause of even well-known and extremely common disorders such as migraine is poorly understood scientifically. Even less is understood about other rarer types of headache and facial pain. We plan to study a large number of people diagnosed with headache and facial pain syndromes in order to better describe the different categories of disorder, to inform when investigations such as scans are helpful, and to describe the effectiveness of various different treatments.
Headache and facial pain appear to be extremely common in people with specific other medical diagnoses such as postural tachycardia syndrome and joint hypermobility syndromes. We plan to systematically assess a cross-section of people with these disorders for the prevalence and types of headache and facial pain experienced.
For both parts of the study we plan to systematically interview a large number of people with these disorders and ask them to complete a number of validated questionnaires assessing factors such as quality of life, psychological factors, and symptoms of autonomic nervous system dysfunction. Participants will need to provide consent to be included in the study. The study will take place in a single appointment, with a brief follow up appointment two years later. The majority of assessments will take place remotely via secure video platform or telephone.
REC name
London - Chelsea Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/PR/0827
Date of REC Opinion
28 Jul 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion