Assisting older adults to communicate their postoperative pain.

An intervention assisting older adults to communicate their pain was tested in a posttest-only experiment. Thirty-eight preoperative older adults were randomly assigned to a communication group watching a videotape about communicating and managing postoperative pain or a comparison group watching a videotape about managing postoperative pain only. Pain was measured on Postoperative Days 1 and 2, and 1 and 7 days after hospital discharge by a data collector blind to the condition.