Background & Aims
Interoception is the perception of internal bodily sensations and is important because signals from inside our bodies may affect behavior, health, and well-being. Current tools to assess it are focused on its psychological aspects rather than body-derived information. A large body of evidence suggests that body-related interoceptive perception may be a trait that is related to self-regulation and pain perception. However, no tools exist to assess different embodied interoceptive (EI) channels. We developed an embodied interoceptive questionnaire to assess embodied interoceptive perception trait and state.
Methods
This study had 6 steps: Step 1: creation of a list of embodied interoceptive channels, previously explored in a psychophysics setup in scientific publications. Step 2: development of a trait proto-questionnaire with two questions for each EI channel (assessing discrimination capacity and unpleasantness) in a visual analogue scale (0-100). Step 3: healthy volunteers (HV) scored the evoked interoceptive state during a dedicated psychophysics setup, in which biological and/or quantitative variables related to each EI channel. Step 4 and 5 – we used classical psychometric theory to validate and reduce the questionnaire to those items carrying the highest interoceptive discrimination, and step 6 – we validated the Intero-10 questionnaire in patients with chronic pain (CP)and compared it to other patient reported outcome measures.
Results
381 HV (55% female) and 86 patients with CP (35% female) participated in this study. Step 1 – 17 EI channels were included: pressure pain, visceral pain, heartbeat, respiratory frequency, hunger, thirst, cold, heat, itch, dyspnea, nausea, sleep, muscle fatigue, anguish, gastric fullness, bladder fullness and muscle pain. Step 3: 240 participated in the experimental tests. Step 4: the final Inero-10 was consolidated including: anguish perception, dyspnea perception, dyspnea unpleasantness, fatigue perception, heat perception, heartbeat perception, heartbeat unpleasantness, itching perception, nausea unpleasantness, and sleep quality perception. Step 5: 63 HV underwent test-retest reliability; intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.84; Cronbach’s alpha of 0.92. Step 6: 86 patients with chronic pain participated in the study. Interoception correlated to quality of life (QoL) (rho -0.46; p<0.001) in this group, but not with most other pain questionnaires.
Conclusions
The Intero-10 had a good validity analysis with a great reliability and internal consistency. Interoception correlated to QoL in patients with chronic pain.
References
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Presenting Author
Ana Mércia Fernandes
Poster Authors
Ana Mércia Fernandes
MS.c.
FMUSP
Lead Author
Camila Squarzoni Dale
Department of Anatomy, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sao Paulo
Lead Author
Vinicius Deniz
Lead Author
Carol Campos
Lead Author
Suzana Curcino
Lead Author
Lin Tchia Yeng
PHD
PAIN GROUP OF THE CLINICAL HOSPITAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO
Lead Author
Marcell Barbosa
Lead Author
Jorge Martins
Lead Author
Manoel Teixeira
University of São Paulo School of Medicine
Lead Author
Abrahao Baptista
T.E.S.Lab, Federal University of ABC, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil
Lead Author
Daniel de Andrade
University of Aalborg
Lead Author
Topics
- Assessment and Diagnosis