Construction and Initial Structure of Sexual Dysfunctions Tendencies Measure

Abstract

Disclosure of sexual dysfunctions is difficult due to shame and social stigma. The instruments to measure sexual dysfunctions so far were quite backdated and lengthy. Moreover, there was no specific instrument available that could evaluate all the sexual dysfunctions on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ criteria in a single scale; separate for men and women. The objective to develop the scale was to provide the non-clinical population with a short and straight-forward measure in English which could help them in deciding about seeking professional help. The constructed scale comprised of 7 items for males and 7 for females and employed 6-points Likert scale for responses. The study involved 79 men and 105 women (N=184; Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sample Adequacy=0.682 for males and 0.618 for females). The inclusion criteria were the practical involvement of the participants in sexual practices and ability to respond to a questionnaire in English. Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted to measure the reliability and validity of the scale. While employing Principal Component Analysis for extraction and Oblimin with Kaiser Normalization as Rotation, Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted on 7 items for males and 7 items for females separately. Sampling adequacy was found good and the adequacy of correlations between items and was found highly significant. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability was satisfactory. 4 factors were extracted for males with 78.65% variance explained. 3 factors were extracted for females with 66.57% variance explained. The communalities for all the 14 items ranged between 0.554 to 0.937. The study established that Sexual Dysfunctions Tendencies Measure is a valid and reliable tool to measure sexual dysfunctions with the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.