Introduction:

The National Curriculum Directive emphasizes that medical curricula should be based on the health needs of the population. Understanding that headache is a public health problem, it must be among the competences required for professional practice at the primary care level. Thus, the assessment of the headache education in undergraduate medical school is fundamental. The aim of this paper is to present an innovative assessment methodology that uses video with virtual characters to assess medical students´ knowledge about headache.

Method:

This is an exploratory, quantitative research, where the knowledge of the medical interns of a federal public university was evaluated through clinical cases with virtual patients. Data were analyzed according to the a priori categories: 1) headache diagnosis; 2) acute treatment of headache; 3) prophylactic treatment of headache; and 4) need for further exams or expert assessment.

Results:

Of the 155 students regularly enrolled in the medical Internship, 31 participated in the research. The analysis showed that only 16.13% recognized chronic migraine, 93.55% recognized the warning signs for secondary headache, and 96.77% diagnosed tension headache. In the treatment of acute migraine phase, the most often prescribed drug classes were anti-inflammatory and simple analgesic drugs. In the case of secondary headache of infectious etiology, the majority (69.56%) prescribed empirical antibiotic therapy. Treatment of the acute phase of tension headache was adequately prescribed by 64.51% of the students. Regarding prophylactic therapy, 87.09% indicated it for migraine and only 29.03% for tension headache. As for the indication of complementary exams, 77.42% did not consider it adequate in migraine cases, while 77.42% indicated the study of CSF in secondary headache. Most students requested neurological evaluation for secondary headache and did not request it for tension headache. The assessment tool was effective in assessing headache knowledge. The use of videos with virtual patients is a useful tool in the assessment of headache knowledge.

Conclusion:

The results allow us to conclude that there are gaps in the diagnosis and management of headache during the undergraduate medical degree of the assessed university, so it is imperative to define a matrix of minimum competences for headache education in undergraduate medical school in Brazil.

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