A comparison of adolescents' and nurses' postoperative pain ratings and perceptions.

PURPOSE

To examine the relationship between adolescents' subjective and nurses' objective pain ratings and their perceptions of each other's evaluation.

METHODOLOGY

Twenty-two adolescent patients admitted for elective surgical procedures and the registered nurses responsible for their nursing management rated pain on a visual analog scale. Pearson Product Moment Correlation, Spearman Rank-Difference Correlation, and T-Test were used to analyze the results.

RESULTS

The correlation between patients' and nurses' pain rating was significant (r = .62; p less than .001). Nurses expected patients to rate pain higher than the nurses would (t = 3.467; p = .0005). There was no significant difference between adolescents' rating and their expectations of nurses' ratings.

CONCLUSION

The relationship between patients' and nurses' pain assessment was moderate. Adolescents perceived that nurses' know how much pain they were experiencing. Nurses expected adolescents to rate pain higher than the nurses themselves would rate it.