Short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire

The short-form McGill asks what pain feels like, not just how much it hurts. Throbbing, shooting, stabbing, sharp, cramping, gnawing, hot-burning, aching, heavy, tender, splitting — eleven sensory words. Then four affective ones: tiring-exhausting, sickening, fearful, and punishing-cruel.

Each of the fifteen is rated none, mild, moderate, or severe. Sensory words sum to a score out of 33, affective to 12, and the two combine to a total out of 45. Two further measures sit alongside: a visual analogue scale for overall intensity, and the Present Pain Intensity index, a six-point scale running from no pain to unbearable.

• Original Publication

Licensing Notes: The instrument is reproduced widely in clinical resources and trial protocols without a posted fee. I found no explicit reproduction terms — confirm before commercial use.

Learn More: Two practical points. The descriptor words are what make this different from a 0-to-10 rating — the quality of pain points toward its mechanism, with burning and shooting suggesting neuropathic pain and aching or throbbing suggesting nociceptive. And the SF-MPQ is written at a level most adults can read, though it depends on vocabulary in a way a numeric scale does not, which matters for translation and for people with limited English.