Background: Postoperative pain is expected and affects many patients who undergo surgery. To prevent complications and long-term pain, the nurse's role is to understand the patient's pain experience, assess the pain and treat it with both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments to relieve the patient's pain using a patient-centered approach.

Purpose: The purpose was to investigate the experiences of adult patients with postoperative pain and pain relief.

Method: A general literature study using a qualitative study design consisted of 10 scientific articles analyzed with an inductive approach according to Elo and Kyngäs.

Results: Three categories were discovered: Postoperative experiences related to the patient, The patient's experience of postoperative pain treatment and the patient's experience of the care staff's response to postoperative pain.

Conclusion: Postoperative pain is a complex and individual experience and pain descriptions can vary in intensity and form. Treatment choices, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological, affect how patients manage their pain. Nurses play an important role in patients' postoperative pain experience, which affects the outcome of pain management and pain relief.