Measurement of reported pain of childbirth: a comparison between Australian and Italian subjects

A group of 22 Australian-born mothers, 10 mothers born in Italy and 8 born in Australia of Italian parents, were tested using the Present Pain Index, the Pain Rating Index (Ranking) and the Number of Words Chosen index from the McGill Pain Questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of words that can be used to describe and measure the intensity of the pain by using weighted words that have a sensory, an evaluative and an affective component. The subjects were mothers in the same maternity ward of a suburban public hospital. No statistically significant results were obtained.     

The use of the McGill Pain Questionnaire in assessing arthritis pain

Responses to the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) were described in two samples of arthritis patients, an inpatient group (n = 94) and an outpatient group (n = 94). Subjects in both samples used a similar set of sensory words to describe their arthritis pain. The inpatient sample, however, used affective words of higher intensity than the outpatient sample. Because the two samples came from a common population, they were combined and exploratory factor analyses using principal component analysis with first oblique and then orthogonal rotations were performed. The analysis yielded 6 factors that accounted for 58.3% of the variance in the sample. Clear sensory factors, an affective factor and an evaluative factor were identified. The study provides preliminary evidence that a substantial affective dimension underlies the MPQ responses of arthritis patients and confirms the parsimony of a 3-factor solution for the questionnaire.     

The German counterpart to McGill Pain Questionnaire

This study presents a German version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) developed by strict adherence to the methodology originally employed by Melzack and Torgerson. Three groups of subjects participated: The first group (n = 40) was used to construct a 5-point intensity scale. The second group (n = 42) was presented a preliminary translation of the MPQ and asked to assign an intensity rating out of the 5-point intensity scale to each of the 78 adjectives. In the last phase, adjectives whose mean ratings differed markedly from those in the original MPQ were resubmitted, along with 3-4 synonyms to a third group (n = 40) who was again asked to assign an intensity value to each word. Finally, the adjectives whose ratings corresponded closest, and thus resulted in congruent rank positions to those of the English originals, were selected. The present counterpart to the MPQ retains the original grouping of adjectives, the identical number of words per group as well as their rank positions within groups. Thus a comparison between German and English mean ratings, rank values and number of words chosen as well as statistical calculations derived therefrom is feasible.