DIFFERENT APPROXIMATIONS OF THE MCGILL PAIN QUESTIONNAIRE IN THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE - A DISCUSSION OF CONTENT VALIDITY

The McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) is a well recognized measuring ins trument for pain in English-speaking countries. Several efforts have b een made to develop equivalent pain-measuring instruments in other lan guages. However, the method of translating the English words contained in the MPQ into another language implies that questions about validit y may be posed. In Norway three different pain questionnaires have bee n developed which are inspired by the MPQ. A primary focus for develop ing the Norwegian Pain questionnaire (NPQ) was the semantics of pain; the focus of the adapted MPQ was to include commonly used somatosensor y Norwegian descriptors of pain in the population of patients with low back pain; the Norwegian McGill Pain Questionnaire (NMPQ) was literal ly translated into Norwegian to provide an equivalent pain questionnai re to the MPQ for cross-cultural comparisons of pain. Examination of c ontent validity of the adapted MPQ and the translated version of the M PQ is examined by comparing the words in those questionnaires with wor ds collected among Norwegians in the process of developing the NPQ. Th e findings support the content validity of the adapted MPQ The NMPQ, h owever, should be further refined to better fit the semantics of pain in Norway.