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Development of an assessment measure for sexual disinhibition in dementia
Kimberly R Chapman1,2, Geoffrey Tremont2, Mary Beth Spitznagel1
1Department of Psychological Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, USA.
Objective:
Sexual disinhibition (SD), a neuropsychiatric symptom characterized by sexually inappropriate comments and/or behaviors, remains under identified in dementia, possibly due to a lack of standardized assessment methods. A recent systematic review of measures used to assess SD proposed four behavioral domains and identified the need for a population-specific measure. The present study addressed this by examining the underlying factor structure of SD to create a new caregiver-report measure.
Methods:
Dementia caregivers (n = 622) recruited online were randomly assigned to Initial Validation (n = 311) or Cross-Validation (n = 311) groups.
Results:
Initial Validation revealed five behavioral domains that served as provisional scales for cross-validation, leading to measure development.
Conclusions:
The current study is the first to statistically evaluate the underlying factor structure of SD, resulting in a new measure that can help better characterize and identify SD.
