Body

Swedo 2022 definition of Misophonia

In a 2022 Delphi study, Swedo et al. aimed to develop a consensus definition of misophonia for the scientific community by using a modified four-round Delphi method in which a multidisciplinary expert committee systematically evaluated and voted on definitional statements extracted from the published literature. They found that, from 68 references yielding 551 candidate statements, 93 statements reached ≥80% expert consensus and were integrated into a final definition characterizing misophonia as a disorder marked by decreased tolerance to specific auditory and associated stimuli, strong negative emotional, physiological, and behavioral reactions, contextual influences, functional impairment, and exclusion by other disorders. From this, they concluded that the existing literature supports a foundational, working consensus definition of misophonia, while emphasizing that the definition should be validated and revised as empirical evidence evolves (Swedo et al., 2022).