Bridging the Gap between Interoception and Mental Health: The German Validation of the Interoceptive Accuracy Scale (IAS) and its Relation to Psychopathological Symptom Burden in a Multicenter Study

Processing of internal bodily signals (i.e., interoception), and associated impairments are thought to be implicated in the development of psychopathology. Recent proposals highlight the need to differentiate between dimensions of interoception (i.e., accuracy and attention) to better understand its relation to mental health. In the current study, we validated the German version of the recently developed Interoceptive Accuracy Scale (IAS; Murphy et al., 2020) and investigated its relation to clinical outcomes, using a multicenter approach (Ntotal = 3462). The German IAS version was best explained by a one-factor structure that showed acceptable psychometric properties. Concerning clinical outcomes, we replicated previous findings showing a negative association between IAS scores and measures of alexithymia in our German-speaking samples. Furthermore, we found that IAS scores were negatively related to measures of clinical symptomatology (e.g., anxiety, depressive-, and somatoform symptoms) and neurotic traits. These findings suggest that the German validation of the IAS is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring subjective interoceptive accuracy and emphasize the importance of distinguishing between dimensions of interoception to understand its modulatory and protective role in the existence of psychopathology.