Reliability and sensitivity measures of the Greek version of the short form of the McGill Pain Questionnaire

The translation of existing healthcare measurement scales is considered a f easible, efficient and popular approach to produce internationally comparab le measures. The short form of the McGill Pain Questionnaire is one of the most widely used and translated instruments to measure the pain experience. The Greek version of the short form of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (GR-S FMPQ) has recently been developed and demonstrated satisfactory levels of i nternal consistency. The objective or the present study was to assess the instrument's reliabili ty and sensitivity. Eighty patients with spinal or knee pain were included. The test-retest rel iability of the instrument was estimated for measurements within the same d ay and after 15 days. The sensitivity of the measure was examined before an d after the application of a physiotherapy therapeutic regime. The correlation coefficients (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient and Spearm an's) ranged from 0.87-0.98 for within-day measurements and from 0.70-0.92 for administrations between days. All indexes of the GR-SFMPQ (total score, sensory and affective scores, total count of used words, visual analogue s core, present pain index) managed consistently to detect the chances in pai n experienced (p <0.05), after a therapeutic intervention, when assessing f or the sensitivity of the questionnaire. An explorative discriminant analys is of the GR-SFMPQ indexes managed to correctly classify up to 85% of the p atients; a classification rate comparable to the full version MPQ rating ca pacity. It can be argued from the results of this study that the Greek version of t he SFMPQ fulfils the criteria of reliability and sensitivity to fluctuation s of pain and can be utilized with confidence in cross-cultural comparative research trials. (C) 2001 European Federation or Chapter of the Internatio nal Association for the Study of Pain.