The sensory pain of Dante's Inferno - Semantics of chronic pain in patients with narcolepsy

• Main Authors: Renata Carvalho Cremaschi, Camila Hirotsu, Sergio Tufik, Fernando Morgadinho Coelho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Brazilian Association of Sleep and Latin American Federation of Sleep Societies 2019-03-01
• Series: Sleep Science
• Subjects: Narcolepsy; Comorbidity; Chronic Pain; Literature
• Online Access: http://sleepscience.org.br/export-pdf/572/v12n1a09.pdf

Objective: To examine the semantics of chronic pain in narcolepsy and to compare with the poem Inferno, from Dante Alighieri. Methods: A cross-sectional study, in which type 1 (n=33) and type 2 (n=33) patients (hypocretin-1 quantification in cerebrospinal fluid), were studied at Departamento de Psicobiologia - Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Brazil). We assessed pain descriptors in the Present Rating Index (PRI) from McGill Pain Questionnaire. Results: There was no significant difference in PRI between narcolepsy groups. In both groups, the most frequent words had a sensory dimension: throbbing, jumping, and tugging. Multiple correspondence analysis revealed the predominance of sensory descriptors and the deficiency of affective descriptors in these groups. Discussion: A study that interpreted the poem Inferno, from Dante Alighieri, as McGill Pain Questionnaires descriptors suggested a contribution of the sensory dimension in pain of possibly narcolepsy patients, similar as in our results.