Quexiety: a new construct and framework for emotion-informed outpatient care

Waiting is a near-universal and consequential feature of outpatient care. Although service-satisfaction research has long documented the costs of waiting, the situational anxiety that builds during this interval still lacks an agreed name, a dedicated measure, and a unifying model. Here, we define quexiety (outpatient waiting anxiety) as a named, measurable, and modifiable construct: a situational state anxiety triggered by uncertainty about the consultation process, diagnosis, and prognosis, manifesting across cognitive, affective, physiological, and behavioral dimensions. We situate quexiety within established theories of state anxiety and waiting-related distress, and we outline an antecedent–mechanism–outcome framework in which temporal, informational, environmental, and individual–clinical antecedents converge on uncertainty, which operates through threat appraisal and insufficient coping resources. The construct’s clearest clinical consequences is its capacity to distort clinical assessment, communication, and decision-making at the moment patient and clinician meet; recognizing quexiety therefore enables a waiting-room-specific instrument, prospective risk stratification, and mechanism-driven intervention, and advances humanized, emotion-informed outpatient care.