In summary, participants who rated self-health as good, very good or excellent

tended to experience less pain during the first three days postoperatively. However, these

same participants did not tend to use less pain medication. Research question 2 was

accepted for less pain, but rejected for less pain medication use.

Impact of Health Assessment and Spirituality on Pain Reports and Analgesic Medication
 Use

 Lastly, it was hypothesized that participants who considered themselves to be very

spiritual and healthy would use less analgesic medication during their postoperative

recovery. A regression analysis was used to determine possible interactions between

health assessment and spirituality and analgesic medication use. There was no

relationship between the variables and pain medication. A further T-Test was used to

determine if there was a difference between the high spirituality and the high self health

assessment groups in analgesic medication use. The T-Test found no mean difference

between the two groups.

 Therefore, Hypothesis 3 was not accepted. Those participants who self-rated their

health as good, very good or excellent and considered their spirituality as high did not

tend to experience less pain or use less pain medication than did the other research

participants.

 Conclusions

 Although participants reported moderate to severe bodily pain and a decrease in

functional activity on a health questionnaire, they considered themselves to be healthy.

There was a relationship between self-health and pain for the first three days after

surgery. It demonstrated that how a person views their health contributes to the amount

of pain they experience after joint replacement. Additionally, less pain experienced did