title: Assessment of the Nature and Severity of Pain Using SF-MPQ for Cancer Patients at the National Institute of Oncology in Rabat in 2015.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cancer is a worldwide health problem and pain is among the most common and unpleasant effects affecting well-being of cancer patients. Accurate description of pain can help physicians to improve its management. Many English tools have been developed to assess pain. Only a limited number of these are applied in Arab countries. Our aim was to assess the quality, the nature and the severity of pain using the short McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) on cancer patients in the National Institute of Oncology (NIO) in Rabat, Morocco.
  
  
  METHODS
  The tool used was the SF-MPQ inspired from the Arabic version of the MPQ. The subjects were cancer patients (N=182) attending the NIO, from 24th October 2015 to 8th January 2016, ≥18 years old, experiencing pain and coming to have or to update their pain medication.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The rate of participation was 96.3%. Eight patients haddif culties to express their pain using descriptors, but could use the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the body diagram. The most frequent sensory descriptors were 'Throbbing', 'Shooting', 'Hot-Burning'. The most used affective descriptor was 'Tiring-Exhausting'. The mean VAS was 6.6 (2.4). The mean score of all items was 11.9 (7.8). The patients were suffering from severe pain. The internal consistency of the form was acceptable.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings indicate that most of the patients attending the pain center of the NIO could use the descriptors of the SF-MPQ to describe their pain. They indicate the usefulness of the SF-MPQ to assess the nature and the severity of pain in cancer patients. This tool should now be tested in other Moroccan and Arabic contexts associated with other tools in clinical trials.
authors.affiliation: Institut Superieur des Professions Infirmieres et Techniques de Sante (ISPITS, Ex-IFCS), Route Casablanca, Rabat, Morocco E-mail : rouahinbl@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Nabila
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rouahi
authors.forename: Zineb
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ouazzani Touhami
authors.forename: Hasna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ahyayauch
authors.forename: Nisrin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: El Mlili
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Filali-Maltouf
authors.forename: Zakaria
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Belkhadir
mesh_terms: D000047:Academies and Institutes; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000072716:Cancer Pain / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009018:Morocco; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D064232:Visual Analog Scale; D055815:Young Adult