• Nanako Tamiya, Shunichi Araki, Gen Ohi, Katsuhiko Inagaki, Naoko Urano, Wataru Hirano, and Lawren Hugh Daltroy.
• Department of Public Health, Teikyo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan. ntamiya@med.teikyo-u.ac.jp
• Scand J Caring Sci. 2002 Jun 1; 16 (2): 137-41.

AbstractAssessment of pain, depression, and anxiety by visual analogue scale in Japanese women with rheumatoid arthritis Visual analogue scales (VAS) of depression and anxiety were compared with standard full-length measures of these variables and with VAS of pain (VAS Pain). This was a good way to develop a practical methodology for the routine assessment of pain and affect in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. The reliability of VAS Pain was studied by test-retest. The validity of VAS Pain in our sample was proved by correlations with the results of other tests. We also investigated the relationship between VAS Pain and C-reactive protein (CRP). In 145 female RA patients, VAS of depression and anxiety were significantly correlated with full-length measures of these variables, and accounted for the majority of the explained variance in VAS Pain, while the full-length standard measures contributed little more. In conclusion, VAS measurements of pain and affect were comprehensible, easily filled-out, and reliable in a sample of Japanese women with RA, and could capture some aspect of affective distress unique to RA patients.

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