This manual addresses some of the difficulties in assessing patients with orofacial pain by focusing onthe questions that need to be asked and analyzing responses of patients to these questions. This is in contrast to just describing the various painful conditions. Particular attention is paid to the meaning of descriptors patients use when describing pain.From a practical point of view, the initial task for a practitioner in assessing a patient with orofacial pain is a reasonably simple process: to establish whether the patient has a dental pain problem, a treatable non‐dental pain problem, or a pain problem that requires referral to a dental or medical specialist. Once this broad sorting is carried out, more specific diagnosis and treatment planning can take place for each condition. To place the patient into one of these categories is often relatively uncomplicated. Nevertheless, mistakes often occur because practi-tioners jump to conclusions before assessing all of the facts, and because insufficient information is gathered before a diagnosis is made. 

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