Pain Assessment for Cancer Patients Based on Their Pain Descriptions (Part 1)

—Development and Evaluation of Methods of Pain Assessment—

Abstract

Cancer pain has a number of physical and psychological components. It is usually defined as a subjective phenomenon since only the sufferer experiences it and because of this, cancer pain is difficult to evaluate. Many cancer patients suffer from their pain, and an important part of relieving it is determining the intensity and characteristics of such pain through pain assessment. We considered that the words chosen by patients to describe their pain were useful for its assessment and had potential value as a diagnostic adjunct.
We evaluated methods of pain assessment for cancer patients with regard to the following objectives : 1) To find an adequate pain assessment instrument for cancer patients for clinical use and to develop the Aichi Prefectural Society of Hospital Pharmacists Pain Questionnaire (APQ) based on the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ), 2) To investigate the relationship between the etiology of pain and words related to pain using APQ and 3) To analyze the relationship between the etiology of pain and the words related to pain by collecting seventy clinical cases. We predicted whether morphine would be effective or not based on the relationship between changes in morphine doses and changes in verbal pain descriptions made by patients. Our findings indicated that pain assessment by APQ is useful means of selecting adequate therapeutics for pain relief.