ICHD-3 Criteria (Tension-Type Headache)
Applies the ICHD-3 tension-type headache criteria.
Open the calculator → Runs in your browser. Data leaves only if you deliberately send a problem report from the interactive tool.
Example
- Headache days per month
- 8
- Number of episodes
- 20
- Months the pattern has run
- 6
- Episode duration
- Hours to 7 days
- Both-sided location
- Yes
- Pressing or tightening quality
- Yes
- No better ICHD-3 explanation
- Yes
Result: 2.2 Frequent episodic tension-type headache
The tool opens with these values already filled in. Replace them with your own.
What the result means
- Shared
- At least TWO of four: both-sided location; pressing or tightening, non-pulsating; mild or moderate intensity; not aggravated by routine physical activity.
- 2.1
- At least 10 episodes on under 1 day a month, under 12 days a year. Episodes last 30 minutes to 7 days.
- 2.2
- At least 10 episodes on 1 to 14 days a month for more than 3 months. Episodes last 30 minutes to 7 days.
- 2.3
- Headache on 15 or more days a month for more than 3 months, lasting hours to days or unremitting. NO episode-count requirement.
- Episodic symptoms
- Both of: no nausea or vomiting at all; no more than one of photophobia or phonophobia.
- Chronic symptoms
- Both of: no more than one of photophobia, phonophobia OR MILD NAUSEA; neither moderate or severe nausea nor vomiting.
- It loosens
- Mild nausea disqualifies the episodic forms and is allowed in the chronic one, where it counts toward the at-most-one allowance. Carrying the episodic rule across denies 2.3 to patients who have it.
What you enter
- Headache days per month
- Number of episodes
- Months the pattern has run
- Episode duration
- Both-sided location
- Pressing or tightening quality
- Mild or moderate intensity
- Not worse with routine activity
The other 5 fields
- Nausea severity
- Vomiting
- Photophobia
- Phonophobia
- No better ICHD-3 explanation
How this is calculated
Headache Classification Committee of the International Headache Society (IHS). The International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition. Cephalalgia. 2018;38(1):1-211, sections 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3. Read the source ↗
A reference and educational tool. Not medical, legal, or financial advice, and not a substitute for clinician judgment.