Pain
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Words related to pain were collected by asking 59 students and 18 patients to create a list by free association. Each subject was then given a dictionary-derived Finnish version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) with the words arranged in alphabetical order and was asked to place his own words among the dictionary-derive words which appeared most appropriate. Simultaneously, each word was allocated on a visual analogue scale (VAS) in order of increasing intensity. ⋯ Those words were chosen for the pain vocabulary which reflected a statistically significant intensity change and were most often to be found in the word-list. The same method is applicable irrespective of language. Words are replaceable by numerical values so that follow-up and renewed investigations become statistically comparable.