Use of the McGill Pain Questionnaire to compare women with vulvar pain, pelvic pain and headaches

OBJECTIVE: To assess differences between women with three distinct types of chronic pain conditions using a modified McGill Pain Questionnaire. STUDY DESIGN: Data by self-administered questionnaire were collected on pat ients presenting to the University of Michigan Medical Center with chronic vulvar pain (144 patients), pelvic pain (198 patients) or headaches (130 pa tients). Data for analysis included: patient demographics, duration of pain and modified McGill Pain Questionnaire scores. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. RESULTS: Patients with vulvar pain had more formal education (P<.001), were more likely to be married (P<.001) and were less likely to be African Amer ican (P=.003) as compared to those with chronic pelvic pain and headaches. Chronic pelvic pain patients were younger than those in the other two group s (P=.002), and headache patients were likely to have had their chronic pai n for a shorter duration than those with vulvar or pelvic pain (P<.001). Pa tients with vulvar pain had lower total scores on the McGill Pain Questionn aire as well as on the four subsets of variables: affective, sensory, cogni tive and miscellaneous indexes (P<.001). They also chose fewer words to des cribe their symptoms from the 20-word lists (P<.001) and had lower average scores in each of the 20 categories as compared to the other two groups (P< .0001). Controlling for age, ethnicity and marital status did not alter thi s significance. CONCLUSION: Patients with vulvar pain were a unique group when compared to other chronic pain populations. Evaluation of the demographics and McGill P ain Questionnaire scores confirmed the distinct qualities of women with vul var pain.