McGill Pain Questionnaire (Pain Centers)

Several pain inventories that combine a variety of

subjective pain measurements are available for clinical use. The McGill Pain Questionnaire is a widely used pain inventory that combines pain intensity rating scales, semantic differential

scales, spatial diagrams and open-ended interview questions.

In part one of the McGill Pain Questionnaire, the

individual is asked to indicate where on the body diagram the

pain is located and asked to place an “E” or an “I” to indicate

whether the pain is external or internal (indicating deep somatic pain). In addition to having the sufferer mark “E” or “I” to indicate external or internal pain some professionals have asked patients to use intensity markings of 1 to 10 with 1 being the least amount of pain and 10 indicating the most pain ever

experienced. Still other professionals have asked patients to use a variety of symbols to indicate different characteristics of

pain, such as O’s for pins and needles, dashes for numbness and X’s for burning pain. Another addition to this test is a word list. individuals are asked to select a word in any of twenty categories that best

describes their pain experience. The person does not have to select all the categories. Several numerical indexes regarding the quality, intensity and scope of the pain experience can be calculated from this inventory. A number of words chosen (NWC) score (0-20) are calculated simply by adding up the number of words selected by the person. A pain-rating index (PRI) can be calculated by adding the rank sums of the assigned intensity values for each of the 3 categories of words selected together or for all categories together.