Assessment Of Preoperative Anxiety Using Visual Facial Anxiety Scale: An Alternative To The Verbal Rating Scale?

The Visual Facial Anxiety Scale is a simple tool which could be used for assessing preoperative anxiety in the preoperative holding area. Anesthesiologists do not routinely evaluate patients " anxiety levels preoperatively.... [ view full abstract ]

The Visual Facial Anxiety Scale is a simple tool which could be used for assessing preoperative anxiety in the preoperative holding area. Anesthesiologists do not routinely evaluate patients " anxiety levels preoperatively. There are no conflicts of interest among the contributors. Abstract Background—Evaluating preoperative anxiety level can be a difficult task for physicians. The Visual Facial Anxiety Scale (VFAS) was designed as an alternative to the Verbal Rating Scale (VRS) for assessing the level of preoperative [state] anxiety. We hypothesized that the VFAS would provide a stronger correlation between the patient and anesthesiologist categorical anxiety assessments than the VRS.