Table 3.

Summary measures of studies in review which measured forms of anxiety.

Study	Measurement tools	Results
Chad et al [25]	McMurtry children’s fear scale	Significant reduction in fear detected by parent due to VRa (mean 2.18; P=.05). Insignificant reduction in fear reported by child due to VR (mean 2.57; P=.43).
Frey et al [28]	VNSb (scale of 0-10)	Anxiety was significantly decreased –1.5 (95% CI –0.8 to –2.3) in the VR condition compared to that in the control condition. Significant difference in anxiety found between VR group and non-VR group using ANOVAc.
Gershon et al [30]	VASd (scale of 0-100); CHEOe Pain Scale	From the CHEO pain scale measure, the VR group had significantly fewer behavioral markers in comparison to controls for anxiety (P<.05). No summary measures were provided in paper.
Glennon et al [31]	5-point Likert scale for anxiety	Participants in the VR group did not experience a statistically significant decrease in anxiety in comparison to that in controls (P>.05).
Gold et al [32]	VAS (scale of 0-10); FASf	Significantly less anxiety (P<.05)was reported and observed in the VR group (mean 1.90, SD 2.2) compared to that in the control group (mean 2.48, SD 2.07).
McSherry et al [33]	VNS	Anxiety scores were not significantly reduced (P>.05) in VR group (mean difference –1.3, SD 4.4) vs control (mean difference –0.4, SD 2.7).
Piskorz et al [35]	VAS	The VR group (mean 11.16, SD 18.58) reported significantly lower stress levels (P<.01) compared to those in the control group (mean 41.89, SD 40.89). Stress levels were 73.4% lower in VR group against control with a large effect size (Cohen d= 0.993).
Walker et al [38]	VAS	No significant difference between intraprocedural anxiety levels. No descriptive statistics were provided.

^aVR: virtual reality.

^bVNS: verbal numerical scale.

^cANOVA: analysis of variance.

^dVAS: visual analog scale.

^eCHEO: Children’s Eastern Ontario Hospital.

^fFAS: facial affective scale.