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 has 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). Depending on the needs of researchers or clinicians, the DMQ may be use in full form, individual subscales, or with the derived composite scales.

Listening to People with Misophonia: Exploring the Multiple Dimensions of Sound Intolerance Using a New Psychometric Tool, the S-Five, in a Large Sample of Individuals Identifying with the Condition

“…Coping behaviour is one of the omitted dimensions that warrants further investigation in future research. Individuals with misophonia described a range of coping strategies in their feedback during our first two waves of development, which is consistent with previous research [4], with the consensus definition [2], and with the recently published Duke misophonia questionnaire [58]. However, these behaviour items did not meaningfully load onto the model in the present study.…”

Specificity of Affective Responses in Misophonia Depends on Trigger Identification

“…Many different measures have been developed and used in past years—most notably the A-MISO-S (Schröder et al, 2013 ) and Misophonia Questionnaire (MQ; Wu et al, 2014 )—and keep being introduced in the misophonia literature (e.g., more recently the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire by Rosenthal et al, 2021 ). We hope that our findings about how the MisoQuest behaves in our online community sample can reveal how this measure relates to other scales assessing misophonia.…”

Misophonia: A Systematic Review of Current and Future Trends in This Emerging Clinical Field

“…However, despite the scarcity of studies, in recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of studies. The reasons for their growing interest were: (1) the need to recognize that there are stimuli that may seem harmless to the general population, but that, nevertheless, in some people cause severe symptoms that considerably affect their lifestyle [ 2 , 6 , 20 , 29 ]; (2) the importance of correctly diagnosing the disorder without the risk of being confused with other similar conditions; [ 5 , 20 , 34 , 83 ]; and (3) the existing insufficiency of effective treatments that can be validated to treat the symptoms of misophonia [ 88 ].…”

“…(8) Duke Misophonia Questionnaire (DMQ) is a broad scale with subscales. Depending on the needs, it can be applied in its entirety or only to the individual subscales [ 83 ]. (9) The first child/adolescent scale for misophonia Sussex Myofonia Scale for Adolescents SMS Adolescent [ 84 ].…”