Paired comparisons of sensory pain adjectives

Background: Language is an important tool in the communication of pain. The most widely known verbal pain assessment tool is the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ). The MPQ scoring procedure implies equal weights for different pain describing adjectives with the same rank value. Aim: In the present study the relative intensity of the most severe sensory pain adjectives of the MPQ was examined by means of Thurstone's method of paired comparison. Method: A questionnaire was constructed to run a balanced pairwise comparison experiment with pain describing adjectives obtained from the Dutch version of the MPQ. The questionnaire was filled out by psychology freshmen (N = 528). Results: Subjects were highly consistent in their choices regarding the paired comparisons but showed substantial individual differences with respect to agreement about the relative intensity of the adjectives. However, some adjectives were clearly rated as more painful than others, these were lancinating, bursting and tearing. Adjectives seen as relatively least painful were clasping, shooting and freezing. Conclusions: The results suggest that the MPQ scoring procedure is not entirely consistent with the relative ranking obtained in the present study. The authors do not consider the extent of this deviation to be a violation of one of the MPQ's underlying assumptions. (C) 2003 European Federation of Chapters of the International Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.