Pain language: affect

Pain language was examined by performing a principal components factor analysis on pain descriptors selected from the McGill Pain Questionnaire by 126 chronic pain patients. Six factors emerged with the greatest variance accounted for by an affective dimension (Factor I). Location of patients in space defined by these factors failed to differentiate medical diagnostic categories or pain intensity but revealed good differentiation on affective distress secondary to pain. Results demonstrate that affective distress is a potent variable in pain language and likely confounds efforts to relate language to medical diagnostic categories.