• B Steiger and D Ettlin.
• Interdisziplinäre Schmerzsprechstunde des Zentrum für Zahnmedizin, Universität Zürich, Plattenstr. 11, 8032, Zürich, Schweiz, beat.steiger@zzm.uzh.ch.
• Schmerz. 2015 Apr 1; 29 (2): 163-70.

BackgroundIn the widely used German pain questionnaire, qualitative pain characteristics are assessed by the Schmerzbeschreibungsliste (SBL). In clinical practice these adjectives insufficiently cover the spectrum of orofacial pain perceptions (OFP) and have not been proven by data. The aim of this study was the analysis of a questionnaire focussing on OFP (ZZM-FB) in which nine additional pain descriptors were amended to the SBL (SBL-OF).ObjectivesThe objectives of this work were to (1) compare selection frequencies between the items of the SBL and the SBL-OF and (2) test the null hypothesis that the SBL and SBL-OF item selection is not influenced by gender, age, pain features (intensity, duration, time pattern, distribution), hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) and diagnosis.Material And MethodsA total of 224 patients consecutively referred to the interdisciplinary OFP unit between 2010 and 2012 completed a ZZM-FB. The corresponding diagnosis was obtained from the clinical reports. In all, 209 OFP-Q were anonymized and data retrospectively analysed at a significance level of p ≤ 0.01.ResultsThe descending rank order of the 12 most frequently selected items was as follow: pressing (SBL), dull (SBL), pulling (SBL), stinging (SBL), dreadful (SBL), miserable (SBL), exhausting (SBL-OF), grueling (SBL-OF), agonizing (SBL-OF), atrocious (SBL), horrible (SBL), pulsating (SBL). The null hypothesis was rejected for all parameters except for age. The selection frequency was significantly influenced by gender, pain intensity, duration and distribution, time pattern, HADS values and diagnosis.ConclusionsIn this cohort, some ADD descriptors were selected more frequently than some SBL items, indicating that the SBL does not adequately capture the characteristics of OFP. These results will be considered in the construction of a revised ZZM-FB, which is currently in development.

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