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Minerva Anestesiologica 2003 January-February;69(1-2):67-73

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Relationship between MPQ and VAS in 962 patients. A rationale for their use

Majani G. ¹, Tiengo M. ², Giardini A. ¹, Calori G. ³, De Micheli P. ⁴, Battaglia A. ⁴

¹ Psychology Unit, Fondazione “S. Maugeri” Clinica del Lavoro e della Riabilitazione, IRCCS Istituto Scientifico di Montescano, Montescano (Pavia), Italy 2 Professore Emerito di Fisiopatologia e Terapia del dolore Università di Milano, Milano 3 Epidemiology Unit, Istituto Scientifico H. San Raffaele, Milano 4 Medical Department Pharmacia Italia, Milan, Italy

Aim. To ana­lyse the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed ­both by the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and by the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) in a ­cross-sec­tion­al ­study ­with ­patients affect­ed by dif­fer­ent ­kinds of ­pain and to ­study the rela­tion­ship ­between VAS and MPQ ­scores in the ­same ­patient sam­ple.
Methods. Nine hundred and sixty-two ­patients affect­ed by dif­fer­ent ­kinds of ­pain (i.e. neu­ro­path­ic ­pain, ­acute ­post-trau­mat­ic ­pain, chron­ic mus­cu­lo-skel­e­tal ­pain, head­ache, and can­cer ­pain) ­were ­enrolled ­into the ­study dur­ing the ­1st vis­it for ­pain man­age­ment. The hor­i­zon­tal 10 cm VAS and the Italian ver­sion of the MPQ ­were admin­is­tered.
Results. VAS ­scores ­proved to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er in ­acute ­posttrau­mat­ic and in chron­ic mus­cu­lo-skel­e­tal ­pain com­pared to head­ache and neu­ro­path­ic ­pain. VAS ­scores ­were sig­ni-
f­i­cant­ly high­er in neu­ro­path­ic ­pain com­pared to can­cer ­pain. MPQ ­total ­score (Pain Rating Index, PRI) relat­ed to neu­ro­path­ic ­pain was sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er ­than ­scores report­ed in the oth­er ­pain ­groups, ­with the excep­tion of can­cer ­pain. Cancer ­pain MPQ ­total ­score was high­er ­than ­acute ­post-trau­mat­ic and chron­ic mus­cu­lo-skel­e­tal PRI ­pain ­scores. Different pat­terns of MPQ dimen­sions ­emerged with­in ­each ­pain ­group. The asso­ci­a­tion ­between VAS and PRI, ana­lysed by ­means of step­wise mul­ti­ple regres­sion anal­y­ses was sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer­ent ­among the ­groups (p<0.0001). The per­cent­age of VAS var­i­ance ­explained by MPQ PRI ­score ­ranged ­from 6% (head­ache) to 32% (neu­ro-path­ic ­pain).
Conclusion. Several dif­fer­enc­es ­emerged ­among the ­pain ­groups. VAS and MPQ proved to ­address ­pain ­aspects ­only par­tial­ly over­lap­ping. In ­some clin­i­cal con­di­tions (head­ache and can­cer) the MPQ can pro­vide ­more ­detailed and clin­i­cal­ly use­ful infor­ma­tion ­about ­patients’ ­pain expe­ri­ence.