title: The Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety and Information Scale (APAIS) - the first trial of a German version.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Preoperative anxiety influences the result of the treatment in patients. To assess preoperative anxiety the Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety and Information Scale (APAIS) [1] was developed. The APAIS measures anxiety and the need-for-information with 6 items, with good reliability and validity. This article presents the first test of the German version of this screening instrument.
  
  
  METHODS
  The German version of the APAIS was tested on 68 patients questioned before surgery on the lower extremities in the Orthopaedic Department of a University Hospital. From 68 patients, 47 (69%) were female and the average age was 55 years. Besides the APAIS, several additional questionnaires with similar or divergent content were administered for testing the convergent and discriminant validity of the APAIS (HADS, SCL-9-K, KASA, COSS, STOA).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The two scales anxiety and need-for-information could be replicated by a factor analysis and had high reliability (anxiety: Cronbachs Alpha = 0.92; need-for-information: Cronbachs Alpha = 0.86). As expected the scales of the APAIS correlated highly with different standard questionnaires which measure anxiety (KASA, STOA) and low with questionnaires of divergent contents (HADS depression, COSS). The APAIS-scales are independent of sex, age or previous surgeries. Patients with a higher need-for-information show higher anxiety (r=0.59) prior to surgery.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  During its first trial the German version of the APAIS proved to be a reliable and valid instrument. Furthermore, it is a good screening instrument to assess preoperative anxiety and need-for-information in clinical practice, especially due to its brevity. In further studies the predictive validity has to be examined in large heterogeneous samples.
authors.affiliation: Universitätsklinikum Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, Medizinische Psychologie und Medizinische Soziologie, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Hendrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Berth
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Petrowski
authors.forename: Friedrich
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Balck