Because patients who are to undergo surgery must give their consent to planned postoperative care, clear and complete information on postoperative pain management should be given. The aim of this quality-of-care study was to evaluate by inquiry the impact of written information describing postoperative pain management on the quality and type of information retained, and patient participation in discussing and agreeing to the postoperative pain management programme during the presurgical anaesthesiology consultation.

Prospective before and after interventional surveys, each lasting 3 weeks and conducted at a 6-month interval (time required to prepare the written information), used a standardized anonymous questionnaire given to patients after the anaesthesiology consultation. Questions requiring a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response assessed the quality of information and what information was retained by the patient, the extent of the patient’s interaction during the discussion with the anaesthesiologist and his/her agreement with the postoperative pain management programme.

Among the 180 before-group patients included, 16.7% reported receiving verbal information during the anaesthesiology consultation, none retained all seven principal side-effects of morphine, 14.4% considered the information to be thorough, 20.6% understood it, 16.7% claimed that it had helped them participate in the discussion and 14.4% concurred with the postoperative pain management programme. Compared to the before inquiry, significantly higher percentages of the 107 after-group patients (given written information before the anaesthesiology consultation) responded as having received verbal information during the anaesthesiology consultation (57.0%), retained morphine’s main side-effects (12.1%), deemed the information thorough (58.9%) and understandable (53.3%), had participated in the discussion (47.7%) and agreed with the postoperative pain management programme (51.4%).

Written information on postoperative pain management distributed before the presurgical anaesthesiology consultation improved the quality of information retained, facilitated discussion with the anaesthesiologist and patient agreement with the postoperative pain management programme.