The purpose of this study was to the present a translated version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire to Brazilian Portuguese that adapted the original pain descriptors according to the Brazilian culture, aiming at its scientific validation. Initially, the original questionnaire was translated by 3 legally recognized translators fluent in English and in Brazilian Portuguese. The translations were meticulously assessed by 5 health professionals (3 dentists, 1 physician and 1 medical student) who were asked to choose the best translation for each pain descriptor of the original questionnaire in English. The resulting questionnaire was applied to 80 subjects (20 professors, 20 dental students, 20 employees and 20 patients, all related to the School of Dentistry of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo). After some adjustments to improve the understanding of the pain descriptors, an adaptation of the intensity values of each pain descriptor was done by 20 postgraduate dental students and 20 undergraduate dental students, who were asked to record, for each word, the pain intensity value based on their personal opinion. In addition, they were asked to fill out the final version of the questionnaire to identify any doubts. The McGill Pain Questionnaire proved to be a very useful tool for measuring pain, and its version in Brazilian Portuguese was validated to be used as an important diagnostic resource.
pain measurement; McGill Pain Questionnaire; Brazilian Portuguese; cross-cultural adaptation
