Relationships between patient attitudes, subjective norms, perceived control, and analgesic use following elective orthopedic surgery.

The theory of planned behavior guided this exploration of postoperative analgesic use among adults (N = 137) undergoing elective orthopedic surgery. Patients who had a more positive attitude toward taking pain medication and had positive subjective norms intended to take more medication than those who had a negative attitude and had negative subjective norms. Perceived control over taking pain medications was not related to intentions. Intentions to take analgesics did not relate to the actual amount of analgesics used, but did relate to the subjective report of medication use. The discrepancy in association between intentions, objective behavior, and subjective behavior raises issues for examining complex behavior using the theory of planned behavior.