Assessment of Pain in Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy by Using McGill Pain Questionnaire

1)  Cases of cancer have been increasing in recent years becoming a serious public health problem. Cancer pain is one of the symptoms that most frequently reported . Cancer pain during chemotherapy is a complex symptom, where usually the patient experiences different types of pain, in various intervals and intensity that reduces the quality of life.

2)  Cancer pain has multifaceted aspects, which takes into consideration not only the conditions of the disease but also the treatment, psycho-emotional and socio-economic factors, the habits of life and the experiences of each patient, becoming a challenge for the healthcare team.

3)  Even in an attempt to control pain, its prevalence is still high and patients experiences it during chemotherapy. This has led to greater attention to pain symptom in recent years.

4)   Despite the various methods available to manage it, the relief of pain however is insufficient not reaching acceptable levels. So, assessment of cancer pain must be a priority action for providing pain relief.

5)  Several pain assessment tools are used worldwide for assessing cancer pain. There is no universally accepted tool for the assessment of cancer pain. The frequently used pain assessment tools are visual analogue scale (VAS), the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS), and the Verbal Rating Scale (VRS).The above-mentioned are unidimensional pain scales which evaluate only one dimension of pain that is the pain severity or intensity.

Assessment and the qualitative perception of pain in cancer patients are important because of the variation in pain intensity, etiology and location. Multidimensional pain scales are assess not only the intensity of pain but also give an insight into the interference of pain with various aspects of daily living such as general activity, sleep, mood, and appetite. The McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) is commonly used multidimensional pain scale.