The VAS pain scale had labels of ‘no pain’ and ‘worst
possible pain’ as its anchors. Correspondingly, the VAS
anxiety was labelled with ‘no anxiety or worry’ and
‘worst possible anxiety or worry’ at either end of the
10 cm line. The VAS anxiety scale has been demonstrated
to be significantly associated with standard psychological
tools for the assessment of anxiety. These scales were
applied in other studies to assess the short-term efficacy
and safety of two kinds of traditional Chinese herbal
patches, assess the efficacy of pain management regimens
in patients with acute postoperative pain, but its usefulness
has not been confirmed in postoperative pain
studies. In addition, the scale has been used to assess the
performance of four self-report measures of anxiety in an
older adult population to investigate the impact of self administration
of midazolam for postoperative anxiety.