News & Events

Key Takeaways

• This study is the first to look at misophonia in a large group of U.S. adults that closely represents the U.S. population.
• 4.6% of the 4,005 people in the study had misophonia, while 78.5% said they were "sometimes" bothered by sounds.
• Misophonia symptoms were higher in women, younger people, and people who are not married.
• Most people with severe misophonia first noticed it in childhood or their teenage years, and eating sounds were the most commonly reported first trigger.
  

INTRODUCTION

Epidemiology is the study of how often health-related disorders occur in different groups of people, and why ^[1]. Research that asks about how common a disorder is, whether there are patterns in who has the disorder, and if there are any known causes of the disorder, all fall under the epidemiology umbrella. Epidemiology research improves our ability to diagnose and treat health-related disorders.  

How common is misophonia?  |  What we know so far

Most of the information we have about misophonia prevalence, or how common misophonia is, comes from research studying groups of specific people – for example,  people receiving psychiatric services for depression ^[2], individuals with autism ^[3], individuals who have also have tinnitus or other sound sensitivities ^{[4, 5, 6]}, or groups of college students ^{[7, 8]}.  These studies found that anywhere from 8.5 to 57% of the people who participated had misophonia. Although these studies have helped us to learn more about how many people have misophonia, the studies do not paint a complete picture of misophonia prevalence because they evaluate only a specific portion of the population.

Several  studies so far have investigated misophonia prevalence using groups of people that are selected to best represent the general population for various regions, including studies investigating the prevalence of misophonia in the United Kingdom ^[9], Turkey ^[10] and Germany ^{[11, 12]}. These studies found prevalence rates of 2.2-18.4%.

To better understand the prevalence of misophonia, the Dixon Lab studied misophonia prevalence in a large group of adults that closely represents the U.S. population.

STUDY RESULTS

• Participants: 4,005 adults were included in the study. These people were chosen to match the overall U.S. population in terms of age, race, education, and income.
• Misophonia Prevalence: 4.6% of the people in the study met the criteria for a misophonia diagnosis using two different diagnostic tools.
• Different Diagnostic Test Results: The study used two different tools to diagnose misophonia. One tool showed that 14.3% of participants had misophonia, while the other resulted in 8.3% with misophonia, and 4.6% had misophonia with both. The difference in results depending upon the tool used highlights why misophonia experts need to continue efforts to standardize the criteria used for diagnosing and evaluating misophonia.
• Sound Sensitivity: 78.5% said they were "sometimes" sensitive to one or more sound.
• Misophonia Response: The most common emotional response was annoyance, and leaving the environment was the most common behavioral response.
  

Who Is Affected?

• Gender and Age:  Females reported significantly higher misophonia symptoms compared to males. Misophonia symptoms were also higher in younger age groups (18-54) compared to older age groups (55-75+).
• Other Factors: People with less than a high school education, people who have never been married, part-time workers, and people with lower incomes also reported higher misophonia symptoms.
• When Misophonia Starts: Most people said they first noticed misophonia in childhood or their teenage years. Nearly half of participants said the sound of someone eating was their first misophonia trigger sound.
• Family History: About 28% of people with misophonia said at least one family member also had sound sensitivity.
• Life Impact: Misophonia affects many parts of life. Nearly half of the people with misophonia had trouble with social activities, while 32% reported problems related to work, and 31% reported difficulty with personal relationships.
  

NEXT STEPS

This study gives us useful information about misophonia prevalence and patterns seen in who has misophonia, but there are future questions to explore. Dr. Dixon explains some of the next steps for researchers and clinicians to consider:

1. Optimizing Tools: As a relatively new clinical and research field, experts are actively developing, optimizing, and testing tools for diagnosing and evaluating misophonia. There have been many recent advancements in diagnostic tools ^{[3, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16]} and future studies to advance our understanding should  carefully select from these, and any other science-based tools to measure misophonia.

The MRF has supported a number of scientific projects which are contributing directly to tool optimization and standardization efforts. To learn more, click here.

1. Including Other Conditions:  In future research studies, it would be beneficial to include complete diagnostic tools for other disorders, like hearing or mental health disorders. This will allow us to better define how misophonia is connected with these disorders that can sometimes overlap (comorbidities).
2. Cultural Differences: People from different cultures might describe misophonia differently. Any cultural differences in misophonia would be important to include in tools used to diagnose and evaluate misophonia so that these tools accurately measure misophonia as experienced in these different cultures.

The MRF currently funds a research project from Dr. Howard Berenbaum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that is looking at cross-cultural characteristics of misophonia

1. Expanded Age Groups: While this study only looked at adults, future studies including the youth population will be important to study how misophonia affects younger people.
   

CITED RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

1. Coggon, D., Barker, D., & Rose, G. (2009). Epidemiology for the Uninitiated. John Wiley & Sons.
2. Siepsiak, M., Sobczak, A. M., Bohaterewicz, B., Cichocki, L., & Dragan, W. L. (2020). Prevalence of misophonia and correlates of its symptoms among inpatients with depression. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(15). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17155464
3. Williams, Z. J., Cascio, C. J., & Woynaroski, T. G. (2022). Psychometric validation of a brief self-report measure of misophonia symptoms and functional impairment: The duke-vanderbilt misophonia screening questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 897901. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.897901
4. Aazh, H., Erfanian, M., Danesh, A. A., & Moore, B. C. J. (2022). Audiological and Other Factors Predicting the Presence of Misophonia Symptoms Among a Clinical Population Seeking Help for Tinnitus and/or Hyperacusis [Original Research]. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.900065
5. Jastreboff, M. M., & Jastreboff, P. J. (2002). Decreased Sound Tolerance and Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT). Australian and New Zealand Journal of Audiology, 24(2), 74-84. https://doi.org/10.1375/audi.24.2.74.31105
6. Sztuka, A., Pospiech, L., Gawron, W., & Dudek, K. (2010). DPOAE in estimation of the function of the cochlea in tinnitus patients with normal hearing. Auris Nasus Larynx, 37(1), 55-60. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anl.2009.05.001
7. Wu, M. S., Lewin, A. B., Murphy, T. K., & Storch, E. A. (2014). Misophonia: incidence, phenomenology, and clinical correlates in an undergraduate student sample. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 70(10), 994-1007. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22098
8. Zhou, X., Wu, M. S., & Storch, E. A. (2017). Misophonia symptoms among Chinese university students: Incidence, associated impairment, and clinical correlates. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 14, 7-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2017.05.001
9. Vitoratou, S., Hayes, C., Uglik-Marucha, N., Pearson, O., Graham, T., & Gregory, J. (2023). Misophonia in the UK: Prevalence and norms from the S-Five in a UK representative sample. PLoS One, 18(3), e0282777. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282777
10. Kılıç, C., Öz, G., Avanoğlu, K. B., & Aksoy, S. (2021). The prevalence and characteristics of misophonia in Ankara, Turkey: population-based study. BJPsych open, 7(5), e144.
11. Jakubovski, E., Müller, A., Kley, H., de Zwaan, M., & Müller-Vahl, K. (2022). Prevalence and clinical correlates of misophonia symptoms in the general population of Germany. Frontiers in psychiatry, 13, 1012424.
12. Pfeiffer, E., Allroggen, M., & Sachser, C. (2024). The prevalence of misophonia in a representative population-based survey in Germany. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 1-8.
13. Vitoratou, S., Uglik-Marucha, N., Hayes, C., & Gregory, J. (2021). Listening to people with misophonia: Exploring the multiple dimensions of sound intolerance using a new psychometric tool, the S-Five, in a large sample of individuals identifying with the condition. Psych, 3(4), 639-662. https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8611/3/4/41
14. Rosenthal, M. Z., Anand, D., Cassiello-Robbins, C., Williams, Z. J., Guetta, R. E., Trumbull, J., & Kelley, L. D. (2021). Development and initial validation of the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire [Original Research]. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.709928
15. Dibb, B., Golding, S. E., & Dozier, T. H. (2021). The development and validation of the Misophonia response scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 149, 110587. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2021.110587
16. Siepsiak, M., Sliwerski, A., & Lukasz Dragan, W. (2020). Development and psychometric properties of MisoQuest-A new self-report questionnaire for misophonia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(5). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051797