Cancer pain is a complex and subjective experience that influences a variety of
functions, comprising sensory, affective and cognitive components. It is well-known that
pain is difficult to describe patients often do not seem to find the appropriate words to
do so.
Meanwhile, Short-Form McGill Pain Questionaire-2 (SF MPQ-2) was proven to
be a sensitive instrument in evaluating the quality of pain in patients with cancer and
other chronic diseases. Aim of this study was to measure different qualities of the
subjective pain experience among patients with cancer. A descriptive cross-sectional
study was conducted at Apeksha Hospital, Maharagama among patients with all types of
cancer-related pain of at least a month or longer duration. Consecutive sampling method
was used to select 384 participants.
Demographic and disease-related data were collected
using pre-tested questionnaire and pain qualities and its intensity related data were
obtained using a validated Sinhala version of SF MPQ-2; which comprises 22 pain
quality word descriptors representing four subscales; continuous pain, intermittent pain,
affective pain and neuropathic pain.
Pain intensity was measured by 11 points Likert
scale; (0-10; no pain to worst pain). Descriptive analysis was done for demographic and
pain severity data using SPSS version 23 for windows. The majority were females
(n=231; 60.2%) and mean age of the participants was 56 years (SD ± 11.8) and a
majority (n= 95; 24.7%) were having urogenital cancers. Highest mean pain score was
reported for aching pain 6.1 (SD+ 3.2) and lowest for gnawing pain 0.73 (SD+ 1 9)
Mean pain scores and SD+ of the pain subscales were as follows; continuous 22 5(10 8)
intermittent 8.1 (8.9), affective 11.1 (9.8) and neuropathic pain 13 9 (10 9) Proper
assessment of different qualities of cancer pain is essential for better care and SF MPQ-
2 provides useful pain descriptors comprising sensory and affective domains.
