Interoception, health anxiety, and emotion regulation. psychometric properties of the original and reduced Italian versions of the multidimensional assessment of interoceptive awareness 2 (MAIA-2)

Objectives: The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA-2) has been extensively used for evaluating self-reported interoception. This paper presents a validation of the original 37-item MAIA-2 in Italian samples. Moreover, we explored the possible development of a reduced version of the MAIA-2 questionnaire. Finally, we assessed the relationships between interoceptive awareness and both emotion dysregulation and health anxiety. Methods: In a first study we evaluated the psychometric properties (reliability, factorial structure, and validity dimensionality) of the MAIA-2 and devised a novel 19-item version, whose properties were also evaluated. Additionally, we examined the association between interoception and emotion dysregulation and health anxiety. In the second study, we ascertained the validity of the 19-item version of MAIA-2 and investigated the relationships between MAIA-2 and mindfulness in an independent sample of general population. Results: Study 1 showed not optimal psychometric indices for the integral Italian version of MAIA-2. An empirically derived 19‐item, 5-factor (Not Distracting, Not Worrying, Attention Regulation, Emotional Awareness, and Trusting) version of MAIA‐2 questionnaire showed instead good fit indices. Correlational analyses detected significant relationships between the dimensions of the interoception and both emotion dysregulation and health anxiety. Study 2 confirmed good psychometric properties of the 19-item MAIA-2 and demonstrated a weak-to-moderate relationship between interoception and the two dimensions of the mindfulness (Awareness and Acceptance), indicating that the measures share a modest amount of common variance. Conclusions: The present findings support the validity of MAIA-2 for assessing interoception and evaluating its possible involvement in emotional regulation and in the maintenance of anxiety disorder.