LOCUS OF CONTROL ORIENTATION AND LEVEL - Drake University

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their effects" (p. 52). Nursing's role, according to this theory, is to intervene to
a degree necessary based on the person's own self-care potential. The goal of
this intervention is to assist the person to regain independence in self-care
agency. For nurses to intervene appropriately, they must be able to asses
effectively the person" self-care abilities. Acquiring understanding about the
diversity of ways or degree to which persons in pain attempt to cope will add
dimension to the Self-Care Deficit Theory of Nursing.
Definition of Tenns
Perceived ~ain relief was defined as the level of pain the person reported
remaining regardless of intervention. Perceived pain relief was operationally
= defined as a number between 0 and 10 selected by the person to describe a level
of pain with 10 being extreme pain, 5 being moderate pain, and 0 being no pain
at all. Persons who received epidural analgesia were asked their perception of
pain every four hours by the nurses and responses were recorded on the epidural
flow sheet (see Appendix A for epidural flow sheet and Appendix B for the
epidural protocol).
A postol~erative person was defined as one between the ages of I8 and
80 who had abdominal surgery with an abdominal incision between May I,
1992 and July 1, 1992.
Euiddral analgesia was defined as the administration of narcotics for the
purpose of pain relief through the epidural route. Narcotics were delivered at a
prescribed rate through a needle inserted into the interspace of L4 or L5 or at
the level nearest the area requiring analgesia. The catheters were advanced over
the needle approximately 4 cm into the epidural space (McNair, 1990).