Summary•The appropriateness of any set of criteria generated to measure the quality of a particular intervention is dependent upon a thorough, up‐to‐date assessment of the current state‐of‐the‐art. Few areas in nursing have received as much research attention as that of pain control, particularly post‐operative pain control.•The following review of the literature*on this subject complements earlier reviews undertaken by Seers (1988) by organizing the information according to four distinct categories, namely environmental issues, nursing actions, patient outcomes and a review of a number of pain measures. This particular format was selected in order to help in the development of structure, process and outcome criteria on the topic of post‐operative pain management.•The section on measurement is to inform practitioners about pain‐assessment charts and provide ideas abo