Are nurses still underestimating patients' pain postoperatively?

This article presents an empirical study of nurses' and patients' assessment of patients' pain following surgery. The study aimed to replicate and extend previous research which indicated that nurses tend to underestimate patients' pain. The independent variables were type of operation, patient gender, time since surgery and nurses' experience. Results confirmed that nurses give consistently lower pain ratings than patients. The prediction that nurses' pain ratings would be influenced by the type of operation was not confirmed. Not surprisingly, pain ratings were lower on day four than on day one. The data failed to confirm previous findings that the more junior the nurses the greater pain they infer in their patients. The main conclusion of this research is that nurses continue to underestimate the severity of pain suffered by patients postoperatively.