Pain description and severity of chronic orofacial pain conditions

A multidisciplinary pain centre study of 120 consecutive chronic orofacial pain patients assessed pain description and intensity ratings, gender diffe rences, prevalence of concurrent conditions, and interinstrument relationsh ips of the McGill Pain Questionnaire and visual analogue scale. Pain words chosen by patients to describe conditions were predominantly sensory words, and patients with concurrent conditions often listed words indicating a su bstantial affective component. Results showed pain intensity ratings of chr onic orofacial pain conditions have similar or higher pain ratings when com pared with other medical chronic pain conditions such as back pain, cancer pain and arthritis. There was a significantly higher female: male ratio (88 :32) with gender playing an important but poorly understood causal role. Th e most frequent condition diagnosed was atypical facial pain (n=40), follow ed by temporomandibular disorder (n=32), atypical odontalgia (n=29) and pat hology of the orofacial region (n=19). Temporomandibular disorder was prese nt in 75 of the 120 subjects, as the sole pain complaint (n=32) or as an as sociated secondary condition (n=43), indicating concurrent pain conditions exist and may be related. There were significantly higher total pain scores of the McGill Pain Questionnaire in patients with multiple conditions comp ared with patients with a single condition. The visual analogue scale showe d a significant correlation to the number of words chosen index of the McGi ll Pain Questionnaire for orofacial pain.