Validation of an electronic version of the Self‐Awareness Questionnaire in English and Italian healthy samples

Abstract

Objectives Interoception is a general sensitivity to bodily sensations that informs motivational processes and behaviours. Interoceptive abilities seem to be impaired in several clinical conditions, and the development of new pragmatic instruments to assess subjective components of interoception are crucially needed. An easy to use paper and pencil questionnaire measuring sensitivity to bodily sensations was validated in an Italian sample (Self‐Awareness Questionnaire; SAQ). Methods In the present study, we created and evaluated an electronic version of the SAQ in Italian and English language. Results Psychometric properties of both electronic versions of the SAQ were validated in an Italian (n = 206) and an English (n = 275) sample, using factorial analyses. Differences in factorial structures observed between the two samples were discussed in terms of cultural impact on emotional regulation and bodily sensations processing. Conclusions The electronic version of SAQ in English and Italian provides a pragmatic and validated tool to evaluate bodily signal sensitivity in clinical settings, informing the development of a new therapy targeting interoceptive processes, in a wide range of psychopathological conditions.

Examining item content validity using property fitting analysis via multidimensional scaling

“…In order to construct scales or questionnaires with items of high psychometric quality, researchers must engage in many activities aimed at building initial versions of the instrument items and then repeatedly revise them to improve their performance (e.g., Kanter, Mulick, Busch, Berlin, & Martell, 2007;Lehmann-Willenbrock & Kauffeld, 2010;Lu & Gilmour, 2006;Murray, Booth, McKenzie, & Kuenssberg, 2015). These psychometric activities may be classified into several categories: (a) activities involved in development of initial item pool based on content validity (e.g., Beauchamp et al, 2010;Kessler, Andrews, Mroczek, Ustun, & Wittchen, 2006;Lu & Gilmour, 2006), (b) analysis of factor structure of items with respect to construct validity, including convergent and divergent validity, item biases, and measurement invariance (e.g., Ferrer, Balluerka, & Widaman, 2008;Hughes, Betka, & Longarzo, 2018;Storch, Rasmussen, Price, Larson, & Murphy, 2010;Walker, 2010;Williams & Polaha, 2014), (c) analysis of criterion-related validity (e.g., Klassen et al, 2009), and (d) analysis of reliability (e.g., Funk, Huebner, & Valois, 2006). Among these psychometric activities, most of them use quantitative methods to examine item behavior or property in the analysis.…”

A German Validation of Four Questionnaires Crucial to the Study of Time Perception: BPS, CFC-14, SAQ, and MQT

“…Human beings have no dedicated sensory organ for perceiving the flow of time; we have to rely on external and internal cues to sense the passage of time. However, there is still a sense of time even under sensory deprivation, that is, exclusion of external stimulation [ 57 ]. Experimental studies have confirmed that time is experienced by directing awareness to our bodily status.…”

“…In the English validation, the questionnaire demonstrated excellent internal consistency of α = 0.90. Allocations of the items to the two factors in the factor analysis of the English questionnaire differed from the Italian version [ 57 ].…”

“…The SAQ is a scale assessing the self-evaluation of how often a person consciously experiences bodily sensations. SAQ scores were found to be associated with alexithymia, anxiety, and hypochondriasis, showing that these disturbances arise due to the misinterpretation and amplification of one’s bodily sensations [ 48 , 57 ]. Lower scores on a precursor questionnaire (on which the SAQ is based on) are further associated with damage in the insula [ 58 ], and IA, as measured with the SAQ, was shown to be correlated with insular connectivity [ 59 ].…”

Modulatory effects of transcranial direct current stimulation of right insula on compassion motivation

“…The Self-Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ; Hughes et al., 2019 ; Longarzo et al., 2015 ) consists of 35 items assessing how and how frequently participants feel signals from their own bodies. Cronbach's alpha was 0.91.…”