FDA Decisions on Measures of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Women: A History, With Grounds to Consider Clinical...

In 2000, the FDA began issuing advice about treatments for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in women. How its recommendations have evolved has not been reviewed. Its consistent preference for self-rating by patients over evaluation by an examining clinician has not been addressed.

Recount the changes in FDA's proposals about patient-reported outcomes and diagnostics. Compare the value of patient-reported measures and clinical interviews.

Historical review is based on draft guidances, publications, meetings, and prescribing information.

The FDA has avoided clinician input into diagnosis and evaluation of the severity of HSDD in women. It abandoned its initial (2000) insistence on counts of satisfying sexual events to define efficacy in favor of symptom-related scales to evaluate desire and distress with daily self-ratings. By 2015, the FDA accepted the self-rated Female Sexual Function Index-Desire Domain (FSFI-D) to measure desire and the most relevant item of the Female Sexual Distress Scale-Revised (FSDS-R) to measure distress; retrospection for both is one month. The FDA rejected the one clinician-rated broad measure of HSDD, the Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory (SIDI-F), although well-validated and treatment-sensitive. Since 2005, the FDA has accepted the Decreased Sexual Desire Screener (DSDS) to diagnose HSDD by non-expert clinicians using self-ratings and exploring them in more depth in a clinical interview.

FDA's decisions on how to measure HSDD in women may have stabilized on accepting 2 co-primary measures: the FSFI-D and the FSDS-R item on bother about low desire, and on accepting the DSDS for diagnosis. FDA's rejection of clinician ratings of severity through interviews in clinical trials seems unsound because interviews can give broader assessments than (brief) self-ratings, although the agency's logic was to avoid diagnostic controversies and help avoid overcommercialization. Semistructured clinical interviews for diagnosis (DSDS) and severity-rating (SIDI-F) are well validated and are recommended for clinical practice. Pyke RE. FDA Decisions on Measures of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Women: A History, With Grounds to Consider Clinical Judgment. Sex Med Rev 2021;9:186-193.