Background & objectives: Pain is one of the most common symptoms in people who need health care. Clinical nurses play an important role in pain management of patients after surgery due to their direct care of the patients. This study was conducted to compare the patients and nurses’ perception in terms of pain management.

Methods: This cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted participation of 118 patients after cardiac surgery and their 50 care provider nurses in the hospitals of Ghaem and Imam Reza located in the city of Mashhad. Inclusion criteria for participating patients included: satisfaction، not connected to the ventilator، do not receive drugs before completing the questionnaire، lack of drug addiction and alcoholism، surgery time less than 72 hours. About nurses، those who had clinical experience at least 6 months and agreed to participate in the study. Random Sampling method was used to select the sample during 2014-2015. Data were collected using Quality Index. The reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient which was 0.80. Data were analyzed using chi-square and Kolmogorov-S statistical tests in SPSS software.

Results: Patients and nurses’ perception about pain were statistically different in the items of the sufficiency of pain management، analgesic agent request، investigation time the patient's condition after the analgesic agent request (p<0.005). As well، in terms of the demand for more pain medication by the patients، there was no significant difference between patients and the nurses (p<0.005). As the 99.2 % of the nurses (n=117) believed patients demand analgesic drugs higher than needed while only the 27.9% of the patients (n = 33) believed that they require more pain medication.

Conclusion: The findings emphasizes on the importance of educational interventions for nurses to improve their pain management skills and pain management for patients after heart surgery.