Semantics of pain in Italy: the Italian version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire.

The Italian version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) is presented. Unlike Melzack's version, it was developed by employing 3 groups of normal subjects, excluding physicians or patients suffering from chronic pain. The verbal scale of pain intensity was obtained by 78 descriptors which form the semantic key and their rank values within each subclass were thus obtained.