Over the past two decades outpatient surgery has become standard practice in paediatric surgery. Adenoidectomy is a common surgical procedure in children. In this prospective survey pain and pain-related outcomes such as sleep and activity disturbance were evaluated in 167 children aged 1-7 years who had undergone adenoidectomy as a day case in Kuopio University Hospital. The survey questionnaire consisted of 76 structured questions about pain, pain medication, adverse effects and daily activities during first week after the operation. Eighty-three per cent of children had pain at home and 17% of them had moderate or severe pain on a four point verbal rating scale. Eighty per cent of children used pain medication at home. Pain medication did not cause any major adverse effects. Over 90% of children were back to normal daily activities during the first three postoperative days and nearly all were able to drink during the whole postoperative period. We conclude that pain is a common problem after adenoidectomy in children but most of the children return to normal activities within three days.