Misophonia is a recently identified disorder of decreased sound tolerance, typically developing during childhood or early adolescence. Misophonia can have a serious impact on the lives of children and families. Thus far, no validated Dutch questionnaires to assess misophonia in youth, and no evidence-based treatment for misophonia specifically in children and adolescents existed.

This study aims to 1) develop and validate two innovative questionnaires for screening and severity assessment of misophonia in youth; and 2) investigate the efficacy of combined CBT+PMT group treatment for misophonia in youth.

For the first aim, we developed the (child- and parent-reported) Misophonia Screening List – Child and Youth and the AMISOS-Y, and (after instrument refinement) an extensive iterative validation process is performed consisting of ROC curve, reliability, and principal component analyses, and assessment of concurrent, convergent and divergent validity, on a combined sample (clinical sample: 95 children/adolescents with misophonia and their parents; control group 197 children/adolescents from the general population and their parents).

For the second aim, a RCT is conducted, in which a clinical sample of 95 children/adolescents with misophonia is randomly assigned to either a direct CBT+PMT treatment condition or a waiting list control group. At three time points (baseline, 3 months, 6 months) we assess severity of misophonia, misophonia screening scores, emotional/behavioral problems, attention problems, sensory processing and quality of life. We also assess clinical change and social validity of the treatment, and explore predictors of treatment outcome.

This project is a collaboration between the Psychiatry department of Amsterdam UMC and Levvel, and is funded by Fonds SGS, een innovatiefonds van Zilveren Kruis.