Applicability of the Brazilian version of the McGill pain questionnaire in elderly patients with chronic pain

Abstract

Chronic pain is a multidimensional experience that involves sensory-perceptual affective-motivational and cognitive-evaluation aspects, which interact and contribute to the ultimate painful response. The characteristic changes of the aging process on each of these aspects can interfere with the experience of pain, thus making appropriate assessment more difficult. The use of multidimensional scales, such as the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) makes more appropriate evaluations possible. The aims of this study were to assess the intra- and inter-examiner reliability of the Brazilian Version of the MPQ (Br-MPQ) and characterize the perceptions of chronic pain in elderly individuals with orthopedic and neurological diseases. The sample consisted of 19 elderly individuals (71.21 ± 7.51 yrs) with orthopedic (G1) and 19 (69.79 ± 5.30 yrs) with neurological diseases (G2), all with a clinical diagnosis of chronic pain but no cognitive alterations. The general intra- and inter- examiner reliability was 0.86 and 0.89 for G1, and 0.71 and 0.68 for G2, respectively (p<0.05). The results showed that the Br-MPQ was easily applied to a group of elderly individuals with chronic pain (8.54 ± 2.35 minutes). The present study demonstrated that the Br-MPQ can be more effective to assess pain in the elderly, as the perception of this symptom is more associated to sensorial, affective, and subjective aspects than to pain intensity.