Creating and Validating the DESEA Questionnaire for Men and Women

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) requires validated instruments for accurate diagnosis and severity assessment.
• Understanding the impact of relationship dynamics on sexual desire is crucial in clinical practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the psychometric properties and factorial structure of the Sexual Desire and Aversion (DESEA) questionnaire.
• To validate the DESEA questionnaire for evaluating sexual desire and interpersonal stress in couples.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study followed by a large-scale online survey of 20,424 Spanish speakers.
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were performed to determine the questionnaire's structure.
• Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, and factor analysis appropriateness was confirmed with KMO and Bartlett's tests.

Main Results:

• The DESEA questionnaire demonstrated high reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.834 pilot, 0.889 final).
• A 3-factor model explained 62.08% of the variance, indicating a robust factorial structure.
• Statistical tests confirmed the suitability of factor analysis for the dataset.

Conclusions:

• The DESEA questionnaire is a psychometrically sound and reliable instrument.
• It is validated for assessing sexual desire and interpersonal stress in both men and women.
• The DESEA questionnaire is suitable for use in clinical and research settings involving couples.