Summary

 Many disciplines including medicine, psychology, and sociology have examined

the relationship of coping and religious affiliation; coping and spiritual beliefs; religious

attendance, and health outcomes like pain, depression, quality of life, mortality, and

morbidity. This investigator believes that the degree of spirituality in the post-surgical

older adult patient has not been considered in evaluating pain report and analgesic

medication use. Achieving adequate pain control is a major goal of professional nursing

care and utilizing spiritual coping may be an important addition in providing non-

pharmocologic pain management.

 Specific Aims

 The purpose of this study is to explore whether a high degree of spirituality, and

high scores for self-health assessment are correlated with postoperative pain and

analgesic medication use in the acute hospital recovery phase. Currently, there is no

evidence in literature that has examined these variables and their relationship with the use

of postoperative pain medication after total joint arthroplasty. Prior research focused on

relationships of long-term functional rehabilitation, quality of life and spiritual coping.

Using two multidimensional instruments, I propose to address three important aims that

will contribute to the relationship of spirituality, self-health assessment, pain report and

analgesic medication use in the postoperative older adult joint arthroplasty patient.

 First, using a multidimensional instrument, this study will investigate whether a

high degree of spirituality is associated with less pain report and medication use in older

individuals receiving primary hip or knee arthroplasty for osteoarthritis. It is the aim of

this research to determine whether older adults receiving a hip or knee arthroplasty with a