The Finnish Pain Questionnaire: comparison of descriptions of pain in coronary heart disease and low back pain.

The verbal description of pain is the method most commonly used to study pain symptoms. The Finnish Pain Questionnaire has not been standardized yet. It is impossible to know which descriptors are typical of certain states of pain and which descriptors differentiate states of pain from each other. The aims of this study was to clarify if it is possible to differentiate pain descriptions for coronary heart disease from descriptions for low back pain using the Finnish Pain Questionnaire and to compare the use of pain descriptors and subclasses of descriptors. The patients comprised 57 male patients with coronary heart disease (mean age 52.9 years) and 60 female patients with low back pain (mean age 52.0 years). The results indicated that different descriptors are important in descriptions of coronary heart disease pain and low back pain. The differences of frequencies in the use of descriptors were statistically significant. There were also significant differences in the use of descriptors from different subclasses of the sensory dimension, according to the mechanisms of pain. The results indicated that it is possible to find out which descriptors are the most important for different states of pain and that the Finnish Pain Questionnaire can be a valid method for describing different states of pain.