Validity and Reliability of the Kinesthetic Motor Imagery of Pelvic Floor Muscle Contraction Questionnaire in Turkish

The KMI-PFQ is a 5-item scale through which women reported their ability and mental effort for imagining pelvic floor muscle contractions.The two dimensions of this instrument (ability and mental effort of the imagined contraction) were scored from zero to 5 for each item. In this imagining ability dimension, responses ranged from zero (the contraction is impossible to feel) to 5 (the imagined contraction is very easy to feel). In the mental effort dimension, the responses ranged from zero (the mental effort to perform the contraction was none to 5 (the mental effort to perform the (imagined) contraction was very intense). Considering that the items for the mental effort dimension are reversed, the maximum score that could be obtained was 25 points for each dimension, with 50 being the maximum possible for the whole questionnaire.

The MIQ-3 developed by Williams et al. will be used to assess individuals' imagery abilities. The HIA-3 is a self-report psychometric measurement method that measures both kinesthetic imagery and visual imagery abilities of individuals. The test consists of 12 items. The test assesses both kinesthetic imagery abilities and visual imagery (internal visual imagery and external visual imagery) abilities of individuals. The test includes 3 different ways of imagining 4 movements. After each imagery action, individuals are asked to rate how easy/difficult it is to perform this mental action. Individuals score their mental actions for Internal Visual Imagery and External Visual Imagery with a 7-point Likert-type scale; 1 = Very hard to see, 7 = Very easy to see; for kinesthetic imagery, 1 = Very hard to feel, 7 = Very easy to feel.

The VVIQ-12 was another instrument we used in validating our KMI-PFQ. The VVIQ is a 12-item self-report scale used to assess the vividness of visual images. The 12 items were structured into four factors: moving space images, familiar images, detailed objects recall, and images creative skill. For each item, the participant can score from 1 to 5 according to how easy it is to generate mental images as clear and realistic as normal vision.