McGillFragebogen

McGillFragebogen is the German-language version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ), a widely used instrument for assessing the multidimensional experience of pain. Developed by Ronald Melzack at McGill University in the 1970s, the MPQ aims to capture not only how intense pain is but also its quality, affective impact, and evaluative judgment, along with the location of pain.

The instrument uses a large list of descriptive adjectives arranged into categories that reflect sensory qualities (such as throbbing, sharp, or burning), affective components (such as tiring or fearful), and evaluative aspects (such as annoying or exhausting). Patients rate the descriptors according to their current pain, typically on a standardized intensity scale. Scoring yields a Pain Rating Index and an overall pain intensity measure, and it can be complemented by marking pain locations on a body diagram.

Variants of the MPQ include the Short-Form MPQ (SF-MPQ) and the SF-MPQ-2, which reduce respondent burden while preserving essential multidimensional properties. The McGillFragebogen has been translated and culturally adapted into German, with validation studies assessing reliability, internal consistency, and construct validity to ensure comparability with the original instrument.

Uses and applications of the McGillFragebogen span clinical practice and research. It supports comprehensive pain assessment in both acute and chronic settings, aids in monitoring treatment outcomes, and facilitates cross-study comparisons of pain quality and intensity. Limitations include potential respondent burden for some patients and the need for proper translation and cultural adaptation to maintain psychometric robustness. Overall, the McGillFragebogen remains a foundational tool for characterizing the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of pain in German-speaking populations.