Purpose of the Questionnaire

This questionnaire presents a revised version of the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ). The revised version was developed to address minor psychometric issues with two subscales and to include additional subscales that assess perceptions of cyclical timeline, illness coherence, and emotional representations.

Question Calibration and Statistical Analysis

The Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R-38) consists of 38 statements reflecting different components of illness representations (perceived personal control, treatment control, timeline and cyclical nature of the illness, meaning of the illness, emotional impact of the illness).
The IPQ-R first asks patients to rate whether or not they have experienced each symptom related to their illness using a yes/no response format.
Next, they are asked whether they believe that the symptom is specifically related to their illness, again using the same yes/no response format. The sum of the items rated “yes” in this second assessment forms the illness identity subscale.
Additionally, there are 18 statements recording perceived causes of the illness (e.g., heredity, diet, smoking, personality) and 14 statements describing possible symptoms (e.g., pain, fatigue, weight loss, lump). Scoring is done on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Validity and Reliability

Exploratory factor analysis indicates that the scale has good construct validity. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) ranges from 0.66 (for the cyclical timeline subscale) to 0.80 (for the emotional impact subscale).
In addition, the questionnaire has been translated and adapted into Greek by Anagnostopoulos & Spanea (2005).

Key References

Anagnostopoulos, F., & Spanea, E. (2005). Assessing illness representation of breast cancer. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 58, 327–334.
Vlavianou, M., Anagnostopoulos, F., Karyda, E., & Kalantzi-Azizi, A. (2005). Predictors of preventive behavior in healthy women regarding breast cancer. Psychology, 12, 489–505.
Moss-Morris, R., Weinman, J., Petrie, K. J., Horne, R., Cameron, L. D., & Buick, D. (2002). The revised illness perception questionnaire (IPQ-R). Psychology & Health, 17, 1–16.