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Pain Characteristics, Analgesic Use Patterns, and Reliability of the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire in
Furkan Güney1, Yasemin Saglan1
1Faculty of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Eskisehir, Turkey.
Purpose:
Pain is frequently underrecognized and undertreated in older adults. This study described pain characteristics and analgesic use patterns in cognitively intact older adults using analgesics. It also examined internal consistency reliability of the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) and its convergent correlation with the Geriatric Pain Measure (GPM).
Design:
Cross-sectional study of 385 cognitively intact adults aged ≥65 years recruited from analgesic users attending Family Health Centers.
Methods:
Data were collected using sociodemographic and analgesic-use questionnaires, the GPM, and the SF-MPQ. Analyses included nonparametric tests, correlations, multivariate linear regression, and internal consistency.
Results:
Participants were mostly women (51.4%), and 72.2% had at least one chronic disease. Analgesics were primarily used for musculoskeletal pain, most commonly knee/joint pain (81.3%). Paracetamol was the most frequently used analgesic (71.7%), followed by diclofenac (29.1%) and dexketoprofen (13%); 60.3% of nonprescribed medications were analgesics. Older age, female gender, and higher frequency of analgesic use were associated with higher pain scores. Diclofenac and etodolac use were also associated with higher pain scores. SF-MPQ and GPM scores were strongly correlated (r = 0.857), and the SF-MPQ showed acceptable-to-good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.78) for a clinical instrument.
Conclusions:
Findings suggest that pain severity varies by age, gender, and analgesic use frequency, supporting individualized assessment approaches, although generalizability is limited to cognitively intact analgesic users.
Clinical Implications:
Routine pain assessment and nurse involvement may contribute to more informed analgesic use in older adults. The SF-MPQ may serve as a practical assessment tool in older adults.
