Der MCS-fragebogen: Erste befunde eines neuen verfahrens zur beschreibung MCS-auslosender stoffe und symptome

There is a lack in methods to describe and diagnose Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). A new psychometric questionnaire is presented, containing two lists. List 1 refers to environmental agents that evoke symptoms and List 2 asks for MCS-symptoms. The questionnaire takes into consideration that MCS- symptoms are responses to low level environmental exposure. It also includes environmental agents evoking other diseases than MCS and contains items to control response sets. Together with some other questionnaires (FPI-R, SVF- 120, SCL-90-R) the new instrument was tested in a study comparing MCS- patients (n = 28) with a patient group suffering from allergy (Type I). The MCS-questionnaire has sufficient reliability and discriminates between the two patient groups very well. The results demonstrate that MCS-patients are no population that reports symptoms by generalizing environmental conditions. The main symptoms of MCS in our group belong to psychic functions of activation and subjective performance.