Pain Assessment of Patients with Chronic Lower Extremity Wounds - Combining the Japanese-version Short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire-2 and Visual Analogue Scale -

Abstract

Unlike acute wound pain, chronic wound pain has been reported to be complex, and cause hyperalgesia and allodynia due to not only nociceptive pain, but also neuropathic or nonorganic pain. Therefore, the pain assessment of patients with chronic wounds should also address these properties, in addition to examining the intensity of pain using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) or Numerical Rating Scale (NRS). Seven patients with chronic lower extremity wounds, admitted to a mixed ward specializing in plastic surgery and dermatology in a hospital, were assessed using the Japanese-version Short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire-2 (SF-MPQ-2) combined with the VAS to clarify the properties and characteristics of their pain. The SF-MPQ-2 is a pain assessment tool, consisting of 4 subscales representing 4 properties (continuous pain, intermittent pain, predominantly neuropathic pain, and affective descriptors) and 22 descriptors of pain. On assessment using the VAS, only 1 patient reported moderate or more severe pain. In contrast, the SF-MPQ-2 revealed the presence of pain with all 4 properties in more than half of the patients. The pain was suspected to be neuropathic in approximately 40%, and it corresponded to hyperalgesia- or allodynia-related descriptors of pain in more than 70%. In patients with a higher total SF-MPQ-2 score, pain was more likely to be neuropathic, and affective descriptors and those related to hyperalgesia/allodynia were more frequently observed.