Clinical stress assessment using a visual analogue scale

Clinicians increasingly require short, efficient methods for assessing distress, both in applied research and clinical settings. Most of the available questionnaires are unsuitable for busy clinical settings. The visual analogue scale (VAS) is widely but empirically used to assess perceived stress.

To provide evidence on two of the psychometric properties of the VAS: its discriminative sensitivity (capacity to highlight a difference between groups) and its interconcept validity (the relationship between VAS stress assessment and the assessment of different, but similar concepts).

Employees attending occupational health centres were randomly selected and completed the VAS and also either the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) or the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Analyses of variance were performed to study group effects (age, sex, marital status, parental status, occupational status) on stress scores (PSS and VAS).

In total, 763 employees participated of whom 501 completed the PSS and 262 the HADS. P-values obtained for the effects of sex, age and occupational status were lower with the VAS than with the PSS. Correlations between the VAS and the anxiety subscale, depression subscale and total score of the HADS were 0.66, 0.45 and 0.65, respectively. Other tools used to assess aspects of psychological distress are known to have similar correlations.

Our findings provide evidence that the VAS is at least as discriminating as a questionnaire when it comes to highlighting differences in stress levels between two groups, and the observed correlations with related constructs support its construct validity.