MEASURING PAIN (MPQ MCGILL'S PAIN QUESTIONNAIRE)

Question 1

What is the McGill Pain Questionnaire?

Answer 1

A self-report tool/ questionnaire designed to measure the quality and intensity of pain using descriptive langauge. It contains 78 words grouped in 20 categories which assess different dimentions of pain.

Question 2

What is the aim of the MPQ?

Answer 2

To measure the intensity & quality of the pain.
Intensity- severity of pain (how much it hurts- mild)
Quality- nature/ type of pain (how it feels like- sharp)

Why? Helps understand cause of pain (nerve pain- burning/shooting and muscle pain- throbbing/aching)

Question 3

How much words are in the MPQ? and how much categories?

Answer 3

78 words grouped into 20 categories that asses sensory, affective, miscellaneous, evaluative aspects of pain. (SAME)

Question 4

How does the MPQ work?

Answer 4

1. Patient selects words that best describes their pain.
2. Each word is assigned an intensity value, which is summed up to provide a total score (called the Pain Rating Index)
3. There’s also a Present Pain Intensity scale which rates current pain.

Question 5

What are ‘pain severity descriptors’?

Answer 5

Includes words that describe the quality or intensity of the pain (sharp)

Question 6

What are ‘affective descriptors’?

Answer 6

Include words that describe the emotional and motivational responses to the pain (tiring, punishing)

Question 7

What are ‘evaluative descriptors’?

Answer 7

Includes words to evaluate the overall pain experience (unberable)

Question 8

What are miscellanous descriptors?

Answer 8

Additional words that don’t fit neatly into the other categories, but still help describe the experience (squeezing, nagging)

Question 9

Name 1 strength and 1 weakness of the MPQ?

Answer 9

Strength: (HOLISTIC)- combines descriptive language (qualitative data) with a numerical scoring system (quantitative data). Which facillitates a understanding of how much pain is being experinced and how its being experinced subjectively.
Weakness: (VALIDITY): Relies on closed questions to collect data- which carries many problems such as forced-choice formats, reducing response validity. Also patients with low reading ability or langauge differences may find accessing the questions challenging.

“Is your pain: burning, stabbing, throbbing, or dull?”

If the patient feels their pain is tight or electric, none of the options are right. They may pick “stabbing” as the closest match, but that’s misleading — the result is incomplete or inaccurate data.