The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA)

TLDR

The study develops a multidimensional self‑report measure of interoceptive body awareness. The authors used a systematic mixed‑methods approach, reviewing literature, creating a conceptual framework, developing and refining items through focus groups and cognitive testing, and validating the scale with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, known‑group comparisons, and correlations with related measures. The final 32‑item MAIA assesses eight concepts and shows promising psychometric properties, indicating it can serve as a foundation for future research and refinement.

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a multidimensional self-report measure of interoceptive body awareness. The systematic mixed-methods process involved reviewing the current literature, specifying a multidimensional conceptual framework, evaluating prior instruments, developing items, and analyzing focus group responses to scale items by instructors and patients of body awareness-enhancing therapies. Following refinement by cognitive testing, items were field-tested in students and instructors of mind-body approaches. Final item selection was achieved by submitting the field test data to an iterative process using multiple validation methods, including exploratory cluster and confirmatory factor analyses, comparison between known groups, and correlations with established measures of related constructs. The resulting 32-item multidimensional instrument assesses eight concepts. The psychometric properties of these final scales suggest that the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) may serve as a starting point for research and further collaborative refinement.