{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.021396396396396396, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0033783783783783786, 'mean_word_length': 5.461818181818182, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Auto-hypnosis before and during vascular access placement for better patient comfort

A large percentage of patients face high levels of stress and anxiety throughout their central venous access placement. Anxiety usually peaks before invasive procedures and surgeries. Extensive research has shown the impact of preoperative stress and anxiety on patient’s physiology, psychology and pain (1, 2). An impact exists also on cancer biology itself. Stress and anxiety are correlated with higher perception of pain, postoperative nausea and longer stay in the recovery room. Studies have shown the interest of using non-pharmacological interventions as an alternative to anxiolytics in perioperative patients. Among these psychological evidence-based interventions, clinical hypnosis has been showed to be one of the most efficient and promising approaches. But scarcity of trained or available human resources makes one-on-one preoperative psychological interventions hard to implement. Virtual reality is an emerging digital tool that could be very useful in certain medical indications. It is an immersive 3D experience, created using a visual headset and headphones. Virtual reality has been used for decades as a distraction tool in medical patients (3). Recent research has shown its potential increased efficacy when coupled with standardized psychological interventions. The efficacy of this dual approach has been demonstrated during invasive procedures such as burn care (4). Recently, this technique has been used in vascular access placement (Fig. 1). The score of preoperative anxiety measured with a numerical anxiety scale dramatically decreased. Based on pilot quantitative and qualitative data, the following potential results have been observed for all patients: