Post-operative pain management: a literature review

The appropriateness of any set of criteria generated to measure the quality of a particular intervention is dependent upon a thorough, up-to-date assessment of the current state-of-the-art. Few areas in nursing have received as much research attention as that of pain control, particularly post-operative pain control. The following review of the literature* on this subject complements earlier reviews undertaken by Seers (1988) by organizing the information according to four distinct categories, namely environmental issues, nursing actions, patient outcomes and a review of a number of pain measures. This particular format was selected in order to help in the development of structure, process and outcome criteria on the topic of post-operative pain management. The section on measurement is to inform practitioners about pain-assessment charts and provide ideas about auditing this area.