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.