The McGill Pain Questionnaire--German version. A study on cancer pain.

The McGill Pain Questionnaire, widely used in English-speaking countries, has been translated into German. The objective in translating the questionnaire was to produce a translation of the words while keeping the expression of the pain quality and intensity. The results of our present study with a German-speaking cancer pain population, concerning the choice of words and pain rating values, are comparable with those of similar English-speaking patients. The superiority of this multidimensional verbal questionnaire in analysis of pain qualities over unidimensional pain intensity scales was proved. The therapeutic effect of peridural opiate analgesia was measured in 30 patients with intractable cancer pain after they had completed the questionnaire. After 5 days of therapy, there was an average of 70% relief of the total pain experience, with best results obtained in patients with bone pain in the lumbo-sacral region.