The effect of music in the postanesthesia care unit on pain levels in women who have had abdominal hysterectomies.

Management of pain in the immediate postoperative period is a major concern of postanesthesia nurses. Music is a nursing intervention with the potential to decrease patient perception of pain in the PACU. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the use of music on the level of patient pain in the immediate postoperative period. A quasi-experimental study design was used with three study groups. All patients scheduled for elective abdominal hysterectomies using a general anesthesia technique were eligible for participation in the study. The setting is a PACU in a community hospital in a suburban area. Subjects were asked to rate their pain level every 15 minutes while in the PACU using two valid and reliable measures, a verbal pain rating scale and a graphic numeric pain intensity scale. Repeated measures of analysis of variance showed no differences in level of pain between groups or over time.