Development and Initial Validation of the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire

Abstract

Misophonia is characterized by decreased tolerance and accompanying defensive motivational system responding to certain aversive sounds and contextual cues associated with such stimuli, typically repetitive oral (e.g., eating sounds) or nasal (e.g., breathing sounds) stimuli. Responses elicit significant psychological distress and impairment in functioning, and include acute increases in (a) negative affect (e.g., anger, anxiety, and disgust), (b) physiological arousal (e.g., sympathetic nervous system activation), and (c) overt behavior (e.g., escape behavior and verbal aggression toward individuals generating triggers). A major barrier to research and treatment of misophonia is the lack of rigorously validated assessment measures. As such, the primary purpose of this study was to develop and psychometrically validate a self-report measure of misophonia, the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire (DMQ). There were two phases of measure development. In Phase 1, items were generated and iteratively refined from a combination of the scientific literature and qualitative feedback from misophonia sufferers, their family members, and professional experts. In Phase 2, a large community sample of adults (n = 424) completed DMQ candidate items and other measures needed for psychometric analyses. A series of iterative analytic procedures (e.g., factor analyses and IRT) were used to derive final DMQ items and scales. The final DMQ is 86 items, and includes subscales: (1) Trigger frequency (16 items), (2) Affective Responses (5 items), (3) Physiological Responses (8 items), (4) Cognitive Responses (10 items), (5) Coping Before (6 items), (6) Coping During (10 items), (7) Coping After (5 items), (8) Impairment (12 items), and Beliefs (14 items). Composite scales were derived for overall Symptom Severity (combined Affective, Physiological, and Cognitive subscales) and Coping (combined the three Coping subscales). The analytic procedures used enable administration of the total DMQ, individual subscales, or the derived composite scales.

Misophonia: Symptoms, Comorbidities and Perspectives of Intervention. From Theory Approach to Integrated Clinical Practice Research

“…The listening desk can be accessed by those affiliated with the AIMIF; people who become aware of the listening desk can contact the helpline and are told, if they are not already members of the Association, how to proceed with affiliation, as affiliates benefit from three free meetings with the therapist. A therapist contacts the user to acquire an e-mail to which should be sent the consent for personal data processing, the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire, abbreviated DMQ (Rosenthal et al, 2021) and the Duke Misophonia Interview checklist, abbreviated DMI. These documents must be completed and sent to the therapist before the first interview begins.…”

“…Said checklist, known as the Duke Misophonia Trigger, an addendum to the Duke Misophonia Interview (Rosenthal et al, 2021), is used to preliminarily identify misophonic triggers as reported by interviewees.…”

“…The CIPPS team employed the first version of two tools, the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire (Rosenthal et al, 2021) and the semi-structured interview (Duke Misophonia Interview) abbreviated respectively DMI and DMQ, to perform an adequate analysis of the misophonic patients' help request. These tools facilitated the therapist in structuring the first two interviews.…”

“…In addition, there are consequential composite scales for overall symptom severity (assessing affectivity, physiology, and cognition in combination) and for coping strategies. The choice to use the DMQ proved to be significant as, unlike other similar instruments such as the Misophonia Questionnaire (Wu et al, 2014), the Amsterdam Misophonia Scale (Naylor et al, 2021), and the Misophonia Response (Dibb et al 2021), it does not focus on the symptoms and disabling facets of the syndrome, but rather on the patients' processes; as a matter of fact, the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire originated from the need to have an instrument that would take into account, in a clinical and research context, and in a comprehensive manner, the affective, cognitive, behavioural and physiological processes that arise in response to misophonic symptoms (Rosenthal et al, 2021). Thus, by administering this questionnaire, it is possible to arrive at the development of targeted interventions that take into account the differences in reactivity and responsiveness of patients to misophonic triggers.…”

Poorer Well-Being in Children With Misophonia: Evidence From the Sussex Misophonia Scale for Adolescents

“…It is therefore important to use a robust methodology when identifying people with misophonia for research purposes. Although several statistically-tested misophonia questionnaires exist for adults ( Wu et al, 2014 ; Rinaldi et al, 2021 ; Rosenthal et al, 2021 ; Vitoratou et al, 2021 ), there are no validated tests for children. Our review found that child-completed (or indeed parent-completed) assessments of any kind are rare in misophonia, and those that exist are typically “add-ons” to adult diagnostics (e.g., with instructions to substitute “my sound issues” for “my child’s sound issues”).…”