TY - JOUR
T1 - Italian Validation of the Touch Avoidance Measure and the Touch Avoidance Questionnaire
AU - Casetta, Laura
AU - Rizzi, Luca
AU - Passarelli, Marcello
AU - Arcara, Giorgio
AU - Perrella, Raffaella
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding. GA was supported by the Ministry of Health under Grant Number GR-2018-12366092.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2020 Casetta, Rizzi, Passarelli, Arcara and Perrella.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/7/23
Y1 - 2020/7/23
N2 - Social touch is essential in relationships and well-being, but the unique personal experience of touch is not assessed and taken into account in health and social care services. The pleasantness of gentle stroking is influenced by gender, toucher genre, toucher familiarity, culture, and age. Moreover, pleasantness is influenced by touch avoidance, the attitude toward interpersonal touch. The aim of this article is to present the translation, adaptation, and validation in Italian of two scales to measure touch avoidance. For translation and validation, we selected the most used scale, the Touch Avoidance Measure (TAM) and a more recent scale, the Touch Avoidance Questionnaire (TAQ). Confirmatory factor analyses reported good model fit for the TAM [comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.947, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.940, root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.065] and excellent model fit for the TAQ (CFI = 0.954, TLI = 0.950, RMSEA = 0.058). Internal consistency was high for all subscales, except the TAQ “Stranger” subscale. One-month test–retest reliability ranged from 0.67 to 0.90 for each subscale. Lastly, convergent validity between the TAM and TAQ was also found to be high. We conclude that the TAM and TAQ can be used to assess touch avoidance with Italian samples. The instrument can be used to support healthcare professionals and to assess attitudes toward touch in individuals with interpersonal difficulties.
AB - Social touch is essential in relationships and well-being, but the unique personal experience of touch is not assessed and taken into account in health and social care services. The pleasantness of gentle stroking is influenced by gender, toucher genre, toucher familiarity, culture, and age. Moreover, pleasantness is influenced by touch avoidance, the attitude toward interpersonal touch. The aim of this article is to present the translation, adaptation, and validation in Italian of two scales to measure touch avoidance. For translation and validation, we selected the most used scale, the Touch Avoidance Measure (TAM) and a more recent scale, the Touch Avoidance Questionnaire (TAQ). Confirmatory factor analyses reported good model fit for the TAM [comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.947, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.940, root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.065] and excellent model fit for the TAQ (CFI = 0.954, TLI = 0.950, RMSEA = 0.058). Internal consistency was high for all subscales, except the TAQ “Stranger” subscale. One-month test–retest reliability ranged from 0.67 to 0.90 for each subscale. Lastly, convergent validity between the TAM and TAQ was also found to be high. We conclude that the TAM and TAQ can be used to assess touch avoidance with Italian samples. The instrument can be used to support healthcare professionals and to assess attitudes toward touch in individuals with interpersonal difficulties.
KW - Italian validation
KW - non-verbal communication
KW - ordinal CFA
KW - social touch
KW - touch avoidance
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U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01673
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01673
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85089235814
VL - 11
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
SN - 1664-1078
M1 - 1673
ER -