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.