Effect of Stress Ball Use or Hand-holding on Anxiety During Skin Cancer Excision: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Patients undergoing skin surgery under local anesthesia can experience anxiety. Adjuvant intraoperative anxiety reduction methods may help.

To assess whether hand-holding or holding a stress ball reduces patient anxiety during excisional surgery of head or neck skin cancer with the patient under local anesthesia and to measure pain and patient satisfaction.

In this nonblinded, single-center randomized clinical trial, performed from January 24 through April 26, 2017, at a dermatology outpatient service in an urban, academic medical center, a consecutive sample of 135 adults who required excisional removal of nonmelanoma skin cancer of the head or neck was randomized and studied.

Participants were randomized 1:1:1 to 3 groups: hand-holding, stress ball, or control (treatment as usual). Participants in the hand-holding group had a female researcher hold one of their hands during administration of anesthesia and extirpation, and those in the stress ball group held a round compressible ball and squeezed it as desired during the same period.

The primary outcome was anxiety, measured by a visual analog scale (VAS), 6-item State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and physiologic measures (blood pressure and heart rate). Secondary outcomes were pain during the procedure and overall participant satisfaction. In addition, participants were asked how many hours they spent researching the procedure before surgery.

A total of 135 participants, 45 per study arm, were enrolled (mean [SD] age, 65.5 [13.9] years; 84 [62.2%] male; 134 [99.3%] white). There were no withdrawals or dropouts. Anxiety decreased over time in all groups, but no significant differences were found in the 3 anxiety measures across the 3 groups (VAS anxiety score before: control group, 3.11; hand-holding group, 3.04; stress ball group, 3.09 [P > .99]; VAS anxiety score during: control group, 1.89; hand-holding group, 2.31; stress ball group, 2.47 [P = .55]; STAI score: control group, 8.91; hand-holding group, 8.93; stress ball group, 8.76 [P = .96]). The 3 groups also did not significantly differ in postprocedure pain scores (control group, 0.78; hand-holding group, 0.64; stress ball group, 0.67; P = .85). Almost all participants (134 [99.2%]) were very satisfied. Participants who had done research had higher preoperative VAS anxiety scores (researched, 3.84; did not research, 2.62; P = .04).

Hand-holding and squeezing a stress ball do not appear to provide incremental anxiety reduction in patients during excisional skin cancer surgery. It is possible that some subgroups may respond better or that patients may respond better when able to select and tailor their preferred anxiety reduction method.

ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02816996.