Table 1.

Examples of the themes and subthemes that emerged from the data analysis.

MEANING UNITS	CONDENSED MEANING UNITS	CODES	SUB-THEMES	THEMES
I think pain is what the person, the patient, says it is. If a patient mentions that he is in pain, it means that he is in pain, irrespective of what the health worker thinks. So post-operative pain is pain as a result of either a minor or major surgical procedure (N1)	(i) pain is what the patient says it is (ii) postoperative pain is as a result of surgery	(i) pain is subjective (ii) operational pain	(i) defining pain (ii) defining postoperative pain	Nurses' understanding of pain and postoperative pain
Pain is an unpleasant feeling that a patient expresses; it is an unpleasant sensory motor feeling that a patient or a person expresses and can only be expressed or be traced to what the patient verbalizes or says there is. (N3).	(i) unpleasant feeling that is expressed	(i) pain is subjective