4.1.4 McGill Pain Questionnaire
The McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) prompts persons with chronic pain to
rate (0 = not at all, 1 = mild, 2 = moderately, and 3 = severe) the
degree that they feel certain types of pain sensations (throbbing,
tiring, heavy, stabbing, etc.)121. With three
subscores (affective pain, sensory pain, and total pain), the MPQ
attempts to capture how an individual’s pain experience is divided into
affective and sensory components121.
De Aquino and colleagues used a 15-item version of the MPQ to assess the
sensory and affective dimensions of an acute pain experience among
methadone-maintained persons with OUD in a randomized,
placebo-controlled study to investigate the acute analgesic effects of
10 mg or 20 mg of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC)122. Participants reported significant relief on
the MPQ to an experimental pain stimulus in the THC conditions, with
predominant effects on sensory rather than affective components of the
pain experience.
In another randomized trial conducted by Latif and colleagues, a
Norwegian version of the Short-Form MPQ was used to evaluate chronic
pain in 143 individuals with OUD randomized to either 12 weeks of
naltrexone or buprenorphine123. No differences in MPQ
chronic pain reports were found after patients transitioned from
non-prescribed opioid use to either buprenorphine or naltrexone;
additionally, a 36-week follow-up found no increase in MPQ pain scores
for those continuing naltrexone or those switching from buprenorphine to
naltrexone. These studies provide preliminary evidence of the utility of
the MPQ in assessing pain in persons with OUD.