Observational studyBMC palliative care2025
Use of brief, simple anxiety assessment tools in palliative care - yes, we can: a cross-sectional observational study of anxiety visual analog scale and numeric rating scale.
Observational study in BMC palliative care, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Virtual reality for pain and anxiety reduction during venous puncture procedures : A within-subject clinical crossover study.Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2026Article
- Use of preoperative placement of mini-midline catheters in patients undergoing thoracoscopic lung resection.Scientific reports · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundGiven the high prevalence of anxiety in palliative care and its frequent underestimation by healthcare professionals, it is important to use simplified tools to facilitate the evaluation of anxiety. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-State scale is a reference 20-item questionnaire that has been validated in this population, but is too long for some patients. The visual analog scale (VAS) and the numeric rating scale (NRS) are two short instruments that have been validated to assess pain, but not anxiety in palliative care.
aimThis study sought to investigate the correlation between anxiety VAS and NRS and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-State scale for assessing anxiety in palliative care patients.
methodsA single-center cross-sectional observational study was conducted over 2 years. All palliative care patients followed by the palliative care team of a French university hospital were eligible. Each patient completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-State scale and rated their perceived anxiety using the NRS and VAS. Pearson's correlation test between the scales and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis were performed to determine diagnostic cut-offs.
resultsA total of 186 patients were included (89.8% with cancer), 20.4% of whom had severe or very severe anxiety. The NRS/ State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-State scale and VAS/ State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-State scale correlations were 0.62 and 0.70, respectively. The NRS and VAS showed good discrimination, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.81 and 0.88, respectively. Cut-offs of 5 (NRS) and 49 millimeters (VAS) yielded sensitivities of 89.5% and 89.2%, respectively, for the detection of severe or very severe anxiety, with specificities of 60.1% and 70.3%, respectively.
conclusionCut-offs of 5 for the NRS and 49 millimeters for the VAS showed excellent sensitivity for detecting anxiety in palliative care.
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