THE MUTILATION QUESTIONNAIRE AS A PREDICTOR OF BLOOD INJURY FEAR AND FAINTING

The Mutilation Questionnaire, (MQ) was examined in terms of its psychometric characteristics, its relation to Fear Survey Schedule-11 Blood/Injury items, its ability to predict B/I-related fainting, a response common to many B/I fearful persons, and its factor structure. In two separate samples of college subjects, females reported greater B/I fear than males, the distributions were positively skewed and negatively kurtotic but internal consistency was adequate in both. The MQ correlated 0.75 with five B/I items taken from the FSS-II. While these two scales were comparable in assessing self-reported B/I fear, the MQ was more predictive of fainting. Discriminant analyses of the 30 MQ items in relation to prediction of subjects' faint histories resulted in 77% correct classification of faint history. However, responses to a single question concerning subjects' self assessment of B/I fear was equally as capable of classifying fainting status as the full MQ scale. Responses to the single fear question correlated 0.55 with faint history while MQ scores correlated only 0.45. Factor analyses of the MQ revealed two factors described as 'revulsion of B/I stimuli', accounting for 19% of item variance and 'fear of bodily damage', accounting for 7%. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the FSS-II, the MQ and alternative means of B/I fear assessment. © 1990.