CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 632Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesMusic Therapy and HealthAnesthesia and Pain Management

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 38 of the 38 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Visual Analog Scale Allows Effective Measurement of Preoperative Anxiety and Detection of Patients’ Anesthetic Concerns

Kindler, Christoph H., Harms, Christoph, Amsler, Felix, Ihde-Scholl, Thomas, Scheidegger, Daniel·2000·Anesthesia & Analgesia
DOI 10.1097/00000539-200003000-00036
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

UNLABELLED: The advent of managed care, reduction of costs, and advances in medical technology place increasing demands on anesthesiologists. Preoperative anxiety may go unnoticed in an environment that stresses increased productivity. The present study compares different methods for measuring preoperative anxiety, identifies certain patient characteristics that predispose to high anxiety, and describes the quantity and quality of anxiety that patients experience preoperatively. Seven hundred thirty-four patients participated in the study. We assessed aspects of anxiety by means of visual analog scales (VAS) and the State Anxiety Score of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The mean STAI anxiety score was 39 +/- 1 (n = 486) and the mean VAS for fear of anesthesia was 29 +/- 1 (n = 539). Patients feared surgery significantly more than anesthesia (P < 0.001). The VAS measuring fear of anesthesia correlated well with the STAI score (r = 0.55; P < 0.01). Young patients, female patients, and patients with no previous anesthetic experience or a previous negative anesthetic experience had higher anxiety scores. Patients worried most about the waiting period preceding surgery and were least concerned about possible awareness intraoperatively. Factor analysis of various anxiety items showed three distinct dimensions of fear: 1) the fear of the unknown 2) the fear of feeling ill, and 3) the fear for one's life. Among these dimensions, fear of the unknown correlated highest with the anxiety measuring techniques STAI and VAS. The simple VAS proved to be a useful and valid measure of preoperative anxiety. IMPLICATIONS: The study of qualitative aspects of anxiety reveals three distinct dimensions of preoperative fear: fear of the unknown, fear of feeling ill, and fear for one's life. Groups of patients with a higher degree of preoperative anxiety and their specific anesthetic concerns can be identified using the visual analog scale.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1097/00000539-200003000-00036

Cites

38 of 38 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 38 references

Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. Vogelsang, 1988, J Post Anesth Nursing, 3, 235
  2. Grabow, 1990, Psychother Psychosom Med Psychol, 40, 255
  3. Moerman, 1996, Anesth Analg, 82, 445

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 601–631 of 631

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Kindler, C. H., Harms, C., Amsler, F., Ihde-Scholl, T., & Scheidegger, D.
Affiliations
  • University of Basel (CH)
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
Corresponding author
  • Kindler, Christoph H.
  • Harms, Christoph
  • Amsler, Felix
  • Scheidegger, Daniel
ORCID
Venue
Anesthesia & Analgesia
Publisher
Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Published
2000-03
Volume
90
Issue
3
Pages
706-712
ISSN
0003-2999 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1097/00000539-200003000-00036
OpenAlex
W2153407324
Cited by
632
References
38
Citations by year
2026: 28 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 50 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 36 · 2014: 38 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 25
FWCI
11.36
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Anesthesia & Analgesia (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Music Therapy and Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Anesthesia and Pain Management
Keywords
preoperative anxiety, visual analogue scale, fear of anesthesia, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, anxiety assessment, fear of the unknown, patient characteristics, intraoperative awareness
MeSH terms
Adult, Aged, Anesthesia, Anxiety, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Psychological Tests, Surgical Procedures, Operative

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review