OBJECTIVES: Patients with cardiovascular disease experience high levels of treatment-associated pain. Adequate pain control for hospitalized patients is justifiable on humanitarian and economic grounds; for example, it can help reduce length of stay and facilitate post-hospital recovery. The objective of this study was to determine whether hospitalized cardiovascular patients' satisfaction with pain control was systematically related to patients' characteristics or aspects of their hospitalization, so as to help hospitals improve the quality of their pain control programs. METHODS: A database of 93,572 surveys from patients discharged from 93 hospitals throughout the US in 2001 was assembled. Surveys contained 49 items pertaining to aspects of hospitalization as well as several patient demographic items. They were pre-coded to include diagnostic information (Diagnosis-Related Group [DRG]) and were mailed to patients within a week of hospital discharge, with a return rate of approximately 25%. Surveys from patients whose DRG was a member of the Major Diagnostic Category for cardiovascular disease (MDC 05) were selected for further analysis. "How well your pain was controlled" was the dependent variable and patient- and hospitalization-related factors were predictors. RESULTS: Univariate analyses showed that satisfaction with pain control was significantly (p<.001) related to age, gender, DRG, and to expectedness of hospitalization. Patients with surgical DRG's expressed more satisfaction than those with medical DRG's; patients who had major surgical procedures were more satisfied with their pain control than others. Correlational analysis showed that satisfaction with pain control was strongly related to patients' ratings of their overall health status. CONCLUSIONS: Patient satisfaction with pain control varied systematically. Hospital cardiac units may improve patients' satisfaction with pain control by paying greater attention to certain patient characteristics (female, medical as opposed to surgical diagnosis, and aged 35-49) and to patients who rate their overall health as poor.