not mean less pain medication used. There has been no previous research evaluating

relationships between how healthy an individual feels and the amount of pain medication

used after surgery. Previous research that has evaluated health status has been with

individuals who were in "poor health" with long-term disability after surgery.

 Most participants considered themselves to be highly spiritual and used spiritual

coping methods such as hoping, praying and dependence on a higher power. There is no

previous research that has examined the spirituality and postoperative pain or pain

medication use afterjoint replacement surgery. Previous research that evaluated

spirituality, health assessment and functional recovery used a very different patient

population. The only similarity was a high degree of spirituality among the older adult

rehabilitation patients (Fitchett, et al. 1999; Kim, et al. 2000; Pressman, et al. 1990). In

my research, most reported that they used spiritual coping methods and behaviors such as

participation in spiritual activities, spiritual writings and prayer. They also believe their

spiritual health contributes to their physical health. The majority of the participants in

this research used these spiritual coping methods. However, there was no evidence that

high self-evaluation for spirituality influenced pain or pain medication use after total joint

replacement surgery.

Strengths and Limitations

 Although this research had strengths, it was limited in its methodology. Primarily

it was a convenience sample of pre-operative total joint arthroscopy patients. This

research was impaired by the use of regional anesthesia by the majority of the

participants. These patients received more regional anesthesia techniques for pain control

postoperatively than most other surgical patients. Regional analgesia is an effective

technique in the treatment of post-operative arthroplasty pain. Pain report and