Short Sexual Well-Being Scale - a cross-sectional validation among transgender and cisgender people

Sexual well-being is often mistakenly operationalized simply as sexual satisfaction. The concept of sexual well-being has been often used as an umbrella term for positive aspects of sexuality, apart from its negative spheres. A new concept of sexual well-being was proposed in line with the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of sexual health. The definition tried to enrich the concept of sexual well-being, but it did not solve the problem of its operationalization. The aim of this study was to verify the psychometric properties of the new scale measuring the concept of sexual well-being.

Two separate studies were conducted for the psychometric validation of the Short Sexual Well-Being Scale (SSWBS). This was because the first study on a group of transgender people was characterized by a smaller than recommended sample for confirmatory factor analysis. On this basis, a second study was conducted on a group of cisgender people. The study on a sample of transgender people (N = 111) verified the psychometric properties of the 4-point version of the scale. In the study on the cisgender sample (N = 211), it was decided to verify the psychometric properties of the 7-point version of the scale and verify whether a bigger response scale would have a positive effect on the reliability of the questionnaire.

The confirmatory factor analysis, reliability analysis using alpha and total omega coefficients, and two measures of validity (content and criterion validity) were applied. The results indicated that the SSWBS had good psychometric properties.

Overall, the presented scale shows good psychometric properties. Both versions of the scale can be used in the quantitative research, but it is recommended to use the 7-point version of the scale. The SSWBS is one of the first questionnaires constructed in accordance with the sexual well-being concept.