Measuring anxiety and depression in the oncology setting using visual-digital scales

Figures & data

Figure 1.  (a) Mean score of CES-D at each response category of the Visual Digital Scale for depression (b) Groups of CES-D scores at each category of the VDS-D.

Table I.  Characteristics of 3 030 respondents in the five studies.

Age	n	Mean	S.D.	Median	(25^th–75^th)	(Min–Max)
All	3 009	57.9	15.6	60	(45–71)	(20–86)
Men	1 120	61.6	15.1	66	(50–73)	(20–86)
Women	1 881	55.7	15.5	56	(42–70)	(21–86)
Gender	No. (%)	Employment status				No. (%)
Men	1125 (37)	Employed				1314 (43)
Women	1895 (63)	Retired				1301 (43)
Not indicated	10 (0)	Unemployed				70 (2)
Residential region		Housewife/husband				44 (1)
Rural	395 (13)	On sick leave/retired				173 (6)
Small village/town	623 (21)	Other				28 (1)
City (>500,000 inhabitants)	1992 (66)	Home with children				10 (0)
Not indicated	20 (1)	Student				21 (1)
Marital status		Not indicated				69 (2)
Married or living with other partner	2034 (67)	Subjects
Has a partner but lives alone	173 (6)	Cystectomized for urinary bladder cancer				224 (7)
Lives alone	619 (20)	Radiated for urinary bladder cancer				58 (2)
Single	166 (5)	Controls to Cystectomized and Radiated				310 (10)
Not indicated	38 (1)	Treated for cervical cancer				256 (8)
Level of education		Controls to Treated for cervical cancer				350 (12)
Primary school	1153 (38)	Widows of men who died of cancer				379 (13)
Secondary school 2-yrs	634 (21)	Controls to widows				220 (7)
Secondary school 3-yrs	420(14)	Parents who have lost a child to cancer				449 (15)
University	668 (22)	Controls to parents who have lost a child in cancer				458 (15)
Other	85 (3)	Watchful waiting for prostate cancer				160 (5)
Not indicated	70 (2)	Radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer				166 (5)
		Total				3030

Table II.  Spearman's correlations between visual digital scales and CES-D or STAI-T in the five data collections.

				Spearman's correlation
		Response rate	Time frame on VDS	VDS-D/CES-D	VDS-A/STAI-T
Data collection 1	^5Radical prostatectomy (men)	(166/189) 88%	6 months	0.673	0.523
	Watchful waiting (men)	(160/187) 86%		0.691	0.592
Data collection 2	^1Cervix (women)	(256/332) 77%	6 months	0.598	0.492
	Controls (women)	(350/489) 72%		0.499	0.441
Data collection 3	^2Cystectomized Stockholm (m & w)	(251*/294) 85%	6 months	0.472	0.498
	Controls (men and women)	(310/434) 71%		0.587	0.539
	Irradiated Stockholm (m & w)	(58/71) 82%		0.686	0.547
Data collection 4	^3Widows (women)	(379/506) 75%	1 week	0.579	0.504
	Controls (women)	(220/287) 77%		0.592	0.532
Data collection 5	^4Bereaved parents (m & w)	(449/561) 80%	1 months	0.616	0.577
	Controls (men and women)	(458/659) 69%		0.554	0.549
	*27 patients excluded due to orthotopic neobladder All respondents	= (3057/4009) 76% Total No. 3030/4009 76%	6 months, 1 months and 1 week	0.582	0.493

Figure 2.  (a) Mean score of STAI-T at each response category of the Visual Digital Scale for anxiety (b) Groups of STAI-T score at each category of the VDS-A.

Figure 3.  Sensitivity and specificity of VDS compared to CES-D and STAI-T.

Figure 4.  Percentage of missing responders on the traditional scales and Visual Digital Scales divided in to different age groups.