BioPsychoSocial Assessment Tools for the Elderly - Assessment Summary Sheet Test: McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) Year: 1975 Domain: Biological, Psychological Assessment Tool Category: Pain Variations/Translations: Several variations including McGill-Melzack Pain Questionnaire, the McGill Pain Assessment Questionnaire, McGill Comprehensive Pain Questionnaire, and the Dartmouth Pain Questionnaire. A short form includes only 15 words. There are versions in most European languages, Arabic, Mexican Spanish and French Canadian French. Assessment Setting: Clinical Method of Delivery: Self-administered questionnaire Description: The MPQ was designed to provide a quantitative profile of three aspects of pain. The method was originally was in evaluating pain therapies; its use as a diagnostic aid has also been described. The complete MPQ comprises section recording the patient’s diagnosis, drug regimen, medical history concerning pain, present pain pattern, accompanying symptoms and modifying factors, effects of pain and a list of 102 words describing pain (20 categories and the part of instrument most often used). Scoring/Interpretation: Four scoring methods have been proposed: 1) Sum of the scale values for all the words chosen in a given category or across all categories (range from 0 to 1.00); 2) Like previous, but replacing scale values with a code indicating rank placement of each word within its class; 3) Number of words chosen; or 4) present pain intensity (PPI) score on a 0 to 5 scale from the pain description section of the questionnaire. Time to Administer: 15-20 minutes Availability: Available as appendix in reference below. Software: N/A Website: N/A Quantitative/Qualitative: Quantitative Validity (Quantitative): PPI score does not agree closely with other scores. The factors tend to intercorrelate highly (0.64-0.81). Reliability (Quantitative): Test-retest reliability giving average consistency of 70.3%. The extent of correlation between sensory and affective scores varies according to the type of pain being considered (0.51 to 0.85). References: Melzack, R. (1975). The McGill Pain Questionnaire: major properties and scoring methods. Pain, 1, 277-299. Comments: A limitation of using verbal descriptors is people’s use of pain language is not necessarily sufficiently consistent for the MPQ to diagnose types of pain. Some of the words reflect both a type and intensity of pain – factor analysis may extract type of pain or intensity of pain factors or both.