Pain in Frail, Elderly Women After Surgery

PURPOSE: To describe the lived experience of postoperative pain in frail, elderly women. DESIGN: Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenological approach. SAMPLE, METHOD: 16 hospitalized women from ages 75 to 93, who had abdominal surgery. Unstructured, open-ended interviews were conducted in 1992. FINDINGS: Three major themes emerged: the immediate reality of pain, security, and dealing with pain. The immediate reality of pain consisted of the feeling, awareness, and past imposing on the present. Security consisted of comfort and trust. Dealing with pain consisted of endurance, control, and self-discovery of strategies, the most predominant of which was being still to relieve pain. CONCLUSIONS: The frail elderly women in this study tended to endure pain and to trust nurses to provide pain-relief measures. Nurses should carefully assess pain and the desire of patients for control of pain-relief measures.