Site comparison of selected aerosol samplers in the wood industry.

Several samplers (IOM, CIP 10-I v1, ACCU-CAP, and Button) were evaluated at various wood industry companies using the CALTOOL system. The results obtained show that compared to the CALTOOL mouth, which can be considered to be representative of the exposure of a person placed at the same location under the same experimental conditions, the concentrations measured by the IOM, CIP 10-I v1, and ACCU-CAP samplers are not significantly different (respectively, 1.12, 0.94, and 0.80 compared to 1.00), the Button sampler (0.86) being close to the ACCU-CAP sampler. Comparisons of dust concentrations measured using both a closed-face cassette (CFC) and one of the above samplers were also made. In all, 235 sampling pairs (sampler + CFC) taken at six companies provided us with a comparison of concentrations measured using IOM, CIP 10-I v1, ACCU-CAP, and Button samplers with concentrations measured using a CFC. All the studied samplers collected systematically more dust than the CFC (2.0 times more for the IOM sampler, 1.84 times more for the CIP 10-I v1 sampler, 1.68 times more for the ACCU-CAP sampler, and 1.46 times more for the Button sampler). The literature most frequently compares the IOM sampler with the CFC: published results generally show larger differences compared with the CFC than those found during our research. There are several explanations for this difference, one of which involves CFC orientation during sampling. It has been shown that concentrations measured using a CFC are dependent on its orientation. Different CFC positions from one sampling session to another are therefore likely to cause differences during CFC-IOM sampler comparisons.

Development of a self-reporting questionnaire, BURMIG, to evaluate the burden of migraine.

We developed a 77-item self-reporting questionnaire to assess the burden of migraine (BURMIG), including headache characteristics, migraine associated disability, comorbidities, management, and the consequences on the patients' lives. We translated BURMIG into four languages (French, Portuguese, German and English) and tested it in 130 headache patients (20 pain clinic, 17 primary care and 93 general public) in Luxembourg. We performed a linguistic and a face-content validation and tested the questionnaire for its comprehensiveness, internal consistency and for its retest-reliability at an interval of 1 month (completion rates were 79.6 and 76.4%, for test and retest, respectively). Retest-reliability for the different parts of the questionnaire varied between 0.6 and 1.0 (Kappa coefficient), with an intracorrelation coefficient of 0.7-1.0. The internal consistency was between 0.74 and 0.91 (Cronbach's alpha). The questionnaire BURMIG is suitable to evaluate the burden of migraine and can be used in English, German, French and Portuguese.