Objective: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) has been used increasingly as an outcome measure in clinical research. Although the generic quality of life instruments has been used in previous research, disease-specific instruments offer greater sensitivity and responsiveness to change than generic instruments. No such disease-specific instrument is currently available that applies to eating-disordered samples. Method:The current article reports on the development and validation of the Eating Disorders Quality of Life (EDQOL) instrument, a disease-specific HRQOL self-report questionnaire designed for disordered eating patients. Results:The EDQOL demonstrates excellent psychometric properties. Conclusion:The application of the EDQOL as an outcome measure in eating disorder research is considered. ª 2005 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

This study provides evidence that the affective experience of binge eating, when assessed in the natural environment, is negative. Furthermore, there was no evidence that binge eating was a response to an immediate or transient negative mood state or that binge eating provided relief from negative mood.

The experience of pain is complex and includes multiple dimensions or aspects, such as sensory and affective (among others). Headache includes not only pain, but also associated symptoms that can further diversify the relevant dimensions. Subjective ratings of head pain, sampled daily, have come to be regarded as the "gold standard" in behavioral headache research. Primary measures of headache include the attack frequency or headache days per month. Secondary measures of headache may include headache activity/index, headache duration, peak headache severity, and/or frequency of severe headaches per month. Secondary measures of disability and quality of life include Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS), Headache Impact Test (HIT), Headache Disability Inventory (HDI). Secondary nonheadache measures include medication consumption, psychiatric symptoms, stress and coping, treatment satisfaction and preference, side effects, and others. Researchers should include not only primary measures of headache, but also secondary measures, disability and quality of life, and nonheadache measures. All measures should be clearly defined and reported. A baseline period that is adequate for each measure needs inclusion and a minimum of 4 weeks is recommended for primary headache measures. Specific suggestions for future research directions are provided.

Guidelines for design of clinical trials evaluating behavioral headache treatments were developed to facilitate production of quality research evaluating behavioral therapies for management of primary headache disorders. These guidelines were produced by a Workgroup of headache researchers under auspices of the American Headache Society. The guidelines are complementary to and modeled after guidelines for pharmacological trials published by the International Headache Society, but they address methodologic considerations unique to behavioral and other nonpharmacological treatments. Explicit guidelines for evaluating behavioral headache therapies are needed as the optimal methodology for behavioral (and other nonpharmacologic) trials necessarily differs from the preferred methodology for drug trials. In addition, trials comparing and integrating drug and behavioral therapies present methodological challenges not addressed by guidelines for pharmacologic research. These guidelines address patient selection, trial design for behavioral treatments and for comparisons across multiple treatment modalities (eg, behavioral vs pharmacologic), evaluation of results, and research ethics. Although developed specifically for behavioral therapies, the guidelines may apply to the design of clinical trials evaluating many forms of nonpharmacologic therapies for headache.

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