Reliability and validity of the Mongolian version of the touch experiences and attitudes questionnaire (TEAQ)

Abstract

Communication via the sense of touch has long been perceived as an important aspect of human development, social comfort, and well-being. Our current understanding is that the human somatosensory system has two tactile sub-modalities. One provides the well-recognized discriminative touch input to the brain, and the second is the affective or emotional input. The C-tactile system is hypothesized to represent the neurobiological substrate for affective and rewarding properties of touch. Lower relationship quality is associated with lower resilience to stressors and increased vulnerability to mental health disorders. A range of scales and questionnaires assess individual, social, and cultural differences in terms of experiences and attitudes to affiliative social touch in different situations and contexts. Our goal was to prove content validity for the Mongolian version with the factor structure of the original English version of the TEAQ. We translated and adapted TEAQ for the Mongolian language version. In the present study, 204 participants were recruited. Their age ranged from 18 to 57 years (26.9±8.8), of which 57.8% were women. TEAQ-57 items were used, and Exploratory factor analysis confirmed 55 items with 6 component structures. TEAQ in the Mongolian language demonstrated good consistency, 6-factor structure of the TEAQ had a satisfactory model fit. Several subscales of the TEAQ revealed positive correlations on quality of life domains, in contrast to negative correlations with anxiety and depression. In conclusion, the analyzed Mongolian version of the TEAQ-55 is a reliable and valid assessment tool of experiences and attitudes toward the touch and is similar to component structure for different cultures (Validated British TEAQ-57, and TEAQ-37 RUS). We expected that the Mongolian version of the TEAQ might be a helpful tool for screening mental health issues and researchers.