Development and validation of the Parental Interoception Questionnaire (PIQ)

Interoception, the awareness and processing of internal bodily-signals, plays a fundamental role in homeostasis and emotion-regulation. Despite this, current evidence does not yet explain how interoceptive abilities develop. Some theories suggest that parent-child interactions play a crucial role, however, direct evidence and related instruments are currently lacking. Therefore, this study aims to develop the novel Parental Interoception Questionnaire (PIQ) to assess parental interoception, defined as the ability of parents to notice and respond to their child’s internal bodily signals. The study followed three-phases for scale development and validation. Phase 1 employed a mixed-methods approach to generate questionnaire items and assess content validity. Phase 2 involved large-scale data collection to refine the questionnaire and establish its factor structure through exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Phase 3 confirmed the factor structure using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with a new sample and evaluated construct validity and reliability. The final 24-item questionnaire comprises five factors: Attention, Epistemic Attitudes, Trust and Self-Efficacy, Regulation, and Linking. Content validity analyses confirmed the relevance of the items, while construct validity testing showed significant associations with theoretically relevant constructs, such as emotion-regulation, parental mentalizing, and children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviours. The measure also exhibited strong test-retest reliability. The PIQ provides a new tool for investigating how parents perceive and regulate their children’s interoceptive signals. Its application in future research, along with other behavioural and observational measures, could enhance our understanding of the parental role in interoception development and contribute to identifying individual differences in this process.