An evaluation of the McGill pain questionnaire for use in dental pain assessment.

Pain following tooth extraction was assessed in 60 patients using the McGill Pain Questionnaire and the Anxiety Differential, along with other measures of patient expectations and behavior. The McGill Pain Questionnaire demonstrated efficacy in assessing postextraction pain with subscale measures relating to situational anxiety, recovery time and use of analgesics. Significant overlap among the subscales (7--58% common variance) was found suggesting further scale refinement is indicated. Pain descriptive words used and mean subscale scores were similar to those previously reported for toothache pain.