In conclusion, to the best of our knowledge, this represents the first study in a tertiary hospital in Malaysia to describe a pattern of knowledge and attitudes towards pain management amongst nurses. In general, the results were consistent with previous studies in other countries, especially in Asia, which described poor knowledge and attitudes amongst nurses in managing patients with pain. Our study population consisted of younger nurses with shorter clinical service experience, and the majority with no postgraduate training in many clinical areas of relevance.This may imply that the undergraduate teaching of pain in nursing programmes in this country is still far from adequate, and that a relevant pain education programme is urgently needed. However, nurses from certain disciplines like oncology consistently scored higher than the rest, which may suggest that clinical experience helped to improve their knowledge and attitudes towards patients’ pain.