Materials
A set of questionnaires using Google forms were created and an online
link to these was made available on internet websites/social media or by
email. As part of a larger research program to collect behavioural
symptoms in people with misophonia, subjects completed a range of
questionnaires designed to assess social, emotional, and physiological
impacts of misophonia. In the current study, data from only two
questionnaires, (i) Misophonia Questionnaire (MQ) (Wu et al., 2014) and
(ii) a newly developed Iowa Mimicry Questionnaire (IMQ), is analysed and
reported.
The MQ consists of three parts, the first part being the Misophonia
Symptom Scale which is designed to examine the specific sound categories
that a person with misophonia is sensitive to, for example, eating,
repetitive tapping and throat sounds, among others. The second part is
the Misophonia Emotions Scale, which examines the emotional and
behavioural responses associated with misophonia symptoms. Each question
in these two parts is scored on a 5-point Likert scale from ‘Not true at
all’ (0) to ‘Always true’ (4). The third and final part is the
Misophonia Severity Scale, which allows participants to provide a rating
of their overall sensitivity to sounds on a scale from 0 to 15 (please
note that the original questionnaire in Wu et al (2014), used a scale
from 1 to 15. We included ‘0’ in the scale to indicate ‘no sensitivity
at all’). A brief description of what numbers from 0 to 15 is meant to
represent in relation to severity was given to help inform participants
how to rate their sound sensitivity. For example, ‘0 to 3; Minimal
within range of normal or very mild sound sensitivities (“I spend
little time resisting or being affected by my sound sensitivities.
Almost no or no interference in daily activity”).
The Iowa Mimicry Questionnaire (IMQ) was used to assess prevalence of
mimicry and its effect on perceived distress in misophonia. The IMQ
consists of a set of five questions which were scored on a 5-point
Likert scale from ‘Never’ (0) to ‘Always’ (4). The first question (“Do
you ever start mimicking the action or sound of the trigger person?”)
addressed the incidence of mimicking. The remaining four questions,
which were answered only if the answer to the first question was in the
affirmative, assessed the automaticity/self-control over mimicry and the
relief, if any, that arises from the act of mimicking. The IMQ is
provided in Appendix 1.