Measurement of male and female sexual dysfunction

Measurement approaches for male and female sexual dysfunction have proliferated in recent years, spurred in large part by the development of new treatments for male and female dysfunction. In the past, physiologic measures of penile tumescence and rigidity in males, and vaginal blood flow in females, played an important role in clinical and research studies. More recently, a variety of brief, self-report measures have been developed for assessing male and female function across a variety of sexual domains (eg, desire, arousal, orgasm, satisfaction). These self-report measures have been shown to have a high degree of reliability and validity, and are sensitive to treatment interventions. Accordingly, they are widely employed in clinical trials. Daily diary or sexual event logs have similarly been developed for this purpose. Self-report measures have been used for clinical screening purposes and for diagnostic assessment of sexual function in a number of studies. Finally, several disease-specific quality of life and treatment satisfaction measures have been developed, which are currently in widespread use in clinical trials of sexual dysfunction.